A Voyage of Understanding
By Christopher Jon Luke Dowgin
Part of the Sinclair Narratives

July 13th, 1923:
Seward, Alaska

"Do you have the time?"

"No sir," responded a man wearing the uniform of a WWI doughboy, "I'm supposed to be keeping watch; this is the president's Train after all."

"No, what time is it?" continued the portly man in his fifties. He was well-worn beyond his years, showing signs of hard drinking by his pallor and the roadmap running across his nose. His voice was taxed by speaking over the steam that was being released by the pistons. He seemed well accustomed to smoke billowing around him in tight quarters. It was hard to tell where the cigar smoke stopped and the steam began. "The time my boy?"

"I'm sorry Mr. President, I didn't see it was you…3:45, sir," said the gentleman, looking up from his Waltham Depollieur wristwatch.

"… Let me think for myself—I'll ask my own questions. I'll get to it; now hush up!"

"Sorry sir," the guard said, removing his cavalry hat to see him better as if it would remove his confusion.

"Oh, nothing. My traveling companion is a bit pushy."

"Yes, sir, ... um, why are you not in your Pullman?" continued the guard as he began pulling on his jodhpurs.

"My friend here wants to know your opinion of Washington—what the 'John Doe' thinks of us cronies," said the president as he seemed to be trying to hush his compatriot with his hands as he rose and fell in the window.

"Honestly?"

"Yes."

"Candidly and honestly?"

"Yes and nothing less."

"Well, I think we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg."

"I fear I never had to worry about my enemies, but my friends and my wife—you haven't seen her, have you…?"

"I was noticing her and her elegant traveling companion boarding that strange Dodge toward the front of the train."

"I keep thinking the car got turned around in some Keystone Cops caper after it stalled on the tracks—I keep thinking the train cars behind it will squish her at any moment," the president said, hanging his head from the window. Then he looked up at the patrolman with a smile, "One could hope—yes, OK! My friend is obstinate on learning your opinion…"

"Well, I never felt, well, having Mellon as Secretary of the Treasury—it's like giving the robbers keys to the bank and having his favorite hunting dog's pup the guard dog of the Federal Reserve."

"You think Crissinger is his lapdog."

"Well…yes, sir," continued the tall Irishman, who just squared his shoulders and lengthened his back to its full extent. "Tariffs might've supplied our fair nation in the past, but not since the Sixteenth Amendment and its sire, The Federal Reserve Act."

"How so?"

"Well it made us all debtors," he continued as he looked up at him sideways, not breaking eye contact, with his calvary hat back on. "Imports paid for your way in the past; now we pay Mr. Morgan and his bank. Mellon is handing out copies of the vault keys to his friends, cutting taxes on them..."

"Once you get him going, it seems like our new friend here can get a good jag on; never mind, continue please." Harding said to the person inside the compartment.

"...as the rest of us carry the vault on our shoulders. He needed an income tax to pay the interest they proffered from a Congress mortgaged to the hilt—with us little guys paying it.

"He doesn't hold back."

"Farmers are suffering as the store merchants raise their prices without foreign competition and the bankers foreclose on the family farm. They are forcing the farmers off their farms since they require workers in their factories. Merchant Bankers will never let a tariff succeed."  

"My friend here just pulled me up by my short hairs," said Harding as he looked back over his shoulder. "I did leave government in the hands of people my wife thought were smarter than I. You rise quickly in this cesspool that way." He paused with some sad remembrances and then continued, "I'm also afraid, when you begin to be more self-assertive…you can count the end of your days." After, Daughtery had seen him throw Forbes up against the wall asking what had been carried out in his name; it was the beginning of the end, and he knew it. He unleashed the hydra.

"How so..." he continued to tip his hat further up with his brow furrowed like his fields back in New Jersey.

"Oh, never mind—what is your name?"

"Sergeant Ralph Dowgin of the New Jersey State Troopers, General Wood asked General Schwarzkopf to spare a special detail for your train, sir."

"Would you like a hit…?"

Ralph looked both ways before he reached up to grab the president's silver flask. Even when drinking with the president, you had to be careful during Prohibition.

"Don't worry, it's not Mellon's hooch—though I'm afraid it's Daugherty's."

Ralph just smiled and handed it back. "That Teapot, I think, is a magician's sleight of hand to hide the bigger rabbit…." he faded out to the train whistle that lost the round to the orchestra of steam that churned away his last words like a night of shaken martinis.

"Sergeant, what was that…" he asked as the train pulled away with his head and shoulders out the window before he turned to smack his friend's hands down.

"I know; you told me there was more. I should have had you deep within my kitchen cabinet—do you want a snort? I can't drink this stuff no more…

"It goes right through you," Warren continued after a snicker. "Me too; you should smell my hearth after an all-night poker game. My bladder shrunk to make room for my belly, I'm afraid..."

"Sir, may I get you anything?" asked the porter.

"Get my friend here an Old Fashioned; I think that used to be your drink," Warren looked at his friend, who only shrugged. "Oh, I get it; it goes right through you…."

"Mr. President, what goes through me…"

"Not you, him," he went on as he looked back at his friend. "Charles, that's right, he can't see you."

Next to Warren was Forbes's lackey Cramer, who committed suicide, or was murdered, to make sure the Veteran's Scandal ended with Forbes. Little worse for wear with an external hairy red epiglottis hanging above his right ear. He wore a shawl-collared sweater and a Stetson wool fedora, still immaculate, despite his murder in March. Charles was proud that his fashion sense was not besmirched in death if he could not say as much about his coiffure.

Warren jut looked at him, taking him in fully for the first time and winced a little. Then Cramer changed his wardrobe into something more Dickensian. 'Hope that is a little better, the head piece is a little uncomfortable for me though; I know what Christ felt like now, dam holly leaves!"

"Sir, your wife is looking for you," interjected the porter. Even this Nigerian felt easy enough to command the president, as was the common air of those friends he couldn't keep off the train. He did look forward to his time with Wallace, his corn-fed Secretary of the Interior. A man of humble and astute mind, if anyone, came from the common clay. And his son Henry A.

"OK, you can go now; I'm not sitting in that death trap with her. Now Charles..."

"Excuse me, sir!"

"I'm not talking to you now; you can leave. Go, shoo! Off with you!" Warren said as he closed the compartment door on the escaping porter.

Now back in June, he met Jesse Smith in the most peculiar of ways. He just stood to relieve himself in the hearth once more, not trusting any of the people at the poker table. One hand was on his hose as the other kept his cards against his chest. He heard a soft, meek voice over his shoulder, "Excuse me." 

He sprayed across his Oxfords as he dropped more than his cards.

"What…" he exclaimed as he almost zipped up some skin as he stepped back into the ashes and hit the mantle. His brain was confused as his nerves pushed him off the mantle toward the disembodied voice. Only when his head began spinning did he see Jesse out of the corner of his eye. The more he focused, the clearer he got, allowing him to look straight at him. Smith still had some mustard-stained napkins and bubble gum wrappers around his collar like some strange bib. Daugherty had his brains blown out over the garbage can of his hotel room not to get charged extra by the management.

Warren vaguely remembered this man Daugherty had running hooch and paper bags of money between Capone and his poker buddies. He was the type most people would just step on his shoes on a bus and continue on by.

When he gained the courage, he looked to his 'buddies' to see their expressions, but they were like an Eskimo after he got caught with another woman, frozen on his doorstep, after trying to pick his own lock.

"Ignore them; if the steak is red and the bourbon free, they will still be there when I'm done with you."

"What!"

"I was a pushover like you; I just came about it cheaper."

"Hmm..."

"I know what it feels like to have a hand up my ass, too," Smith frowned. "The only difference is your wife has your balls in her clench, and I have Daugherty's, hmm, in my clench. I could never see what was behind me, but I will give you that ability."

Harding was silent and dumbfounded.

"I'm that Dickensian ghost of the past," Smith continued as he took Daugherty's martini from his hand. "It's not the first time I shared this pig's spit, so don't worry."

"That is the least I'm worried about..."

During the evening he went through his past and returned from Tir na nÓg to find the game never paused as he returned to the table and folded with his ash and charred cards.

He proceeded to rewrite his will, stopped drinking, and got on the first train out of Washington.

Nobody from that poker game was invited.

…

The second of three who visited him was Cramer, who used Sergeant Dowgin and others that day, at each station stop, to show him the present state of the nation.

As he left the compartment and Charles behind, he didn't leave to find his old bitch of a wife but sought out the Wallaces and the old doc, who must be enjoying their break from his insistent, continuous, if not monotonous, all-week bridge games. That is where I met the president, Henry Sinclair; everyone's favorite immortal... I would be if I could tell most folks.

Schwarzkopf had asked the man in the Baltimore Coat to join the president after he expressed concerns over his life. I was also contacted by the latest Comptroller of the Currency, Daniel Crissinger, who replaced Mellon's stooge, to meet the latest Dupin on board.

After Poe's faked death, President Tyler appointed him secret agent Dupin, named after his detective, to protect him from Webster, Clay, and Calhoun who had recently assassinated President Harrison. Poe and I kept Tyler safe, but we lost presidents Polk and Taylor afterward. In time, the comptroller took over our agency.

Eventually, Poe, the man in the Baltimore Coat, died in his eighties quietly outside of Boston near where his mother grew up. Me, I just go on like the rock of ages. Recently, I had to give up my life as Edward Searle and buy another headstone. It's been a while since I openly used the name Henry Sinclair, which I was baptized in the 14th century in Orkney.

They did try digging up my body, though this time…

On the train with me was Bjorn, one of my reincarnated third-generation Viking crew, who sailed with me looking for Vinland. By his 18th birthday, his memory of that life flooded back within the haze of a vat of mead and some Jimsonweed I snuck into his drink. To most people, he looks like my muscle. However, he stopped wrestling me when he was sixteen. He was never much for foibles.

I was sitting with Henry C. and Henry A. and Doc, waiting for the latest man in the Baltimore Coat. I was catching up on The New York Times and my friend's paper, The Daily Dispatch out of Manchester, England. The story has not changed in five hundred years, but the details and names have changed.

"Why are you always reading those rags?" Bjorn asked. "What do you care about what is going on in Whatthefuckistan!" 

I left him waiting for my response while I finished my licorice. It's much better than chocolate; it takes time to finish chewing it, and it prevents hand-to-mouth disease. "One world," I answered as I folded the paper on my lap.

Bjorn had that sideways, lost dog look when the president joined our table in the dining car. Not a card in sight.

"It's good to sit and listen for a while; please continue on…"

"Warren, I think you sat too long in your life and just listened," the elder Wallace said as he sipped his tea. "This country would have been better off if you were president for the last two years."

"I'm not sure," Harding said, looking at his lap with his arms out, taking stock in his person. "I'm just a hick newspaper editor and the premium stock of an Ohioan of the second class."

I interjected, "You know what is round on both ends and hi in the middle."

Warren snickered but remained silent. The rest just looked from one to another. Henry C. looked at Warren, but he only smiled. Henry asked.

A man had just entered the car and was now sitting next to me, "O-Hi-O." He was wearing a slightly out-of-fashion brown duster with wide lapels.

He offered his hand to me. His grip was stronger than the grippe on your colon, surprising for a man as diminutive as him. "Major General Smedley Butler."

I knew him from the papers, but I thought he was taller.

Harding looked up at him and then scanned the room. He then realized that the patrons at the tables on both ends of the car and the ones in the middle were all over six feet by the way their heads reached the upper windows. Then he made eye contact with the gentleman on the outside of the rear right table. He nodded at him, and Sergeant Dowgin came and sat next to him.

"Mind if I return the favor?" Ralph took his teacup and liberated some applejack. "Try this; my brother makes it back on the farm; it's better than any Piney gin he has confiscated going to Capone."

"Is it a conflict of duty having your brother bootleg?" asked Warren.

"No, he outranks me, for now, that is…" His brother was a captain in the NJ State Police.

It was then Doc took Warren's cup, "Pretty smooth, express my thanks to…"

"Dave."

"To Dave."

Smedley raised the glass Ralph poured him, as me and the Wallaces hoisted mugs of hot chocolate.

The night went on through the mirth to the other side of concern.

"Who do you think it is?" I asked.

"I just started to take account of the last two years; I was too busy glad-handing and shuffling in smoke-filled rooms to see clearly," answered Warren. "Those pushing for Civil Rights know me for saying one thing and my 'administration' doing another, so I lost them after Tulsa, needless of my speech. Tensions are high. Then the same goes for the unions," Warren said. He made a speech in Oklahoma after black and white veterans opened up war on each other with the airforce bombing the town after a white girl yelled at a black boy in an elevator.

"You might still have them; is there any truth that you might have some African blood?" I asked.

"...For the business-minded, I gave too much hope to the slaves of Pharaoh. Overseas, some think Lenin was poisoned. He began switching from railroads to tractors, you know H.C., that many bankers want to see those Reds dependent on our grain supplies so in the end they want to see Morgan's railroad friends succeed."

"True, I did work with the McCormicks to get some tractor deals in Russia, they seemed to dry up suddenly." H.C. Wallace answered.

Warren paused and looked to his lap and raised his left hand before his chin adjusted his gaze out the window, "Morgan also would like the Germans' reparations lowered so they would begin to pay back the Allied Nations so they can pay back the Bank of England and his bank on their loans."

"Why so?" Bjorn asked.

"In the end, he is using Mellon to pay the Germans to serendipitously fill his wallet. Double-dipping as it is, through his wife and Rothschild friends he owns the Bank of England along with the Fed," Warren answered. " I wouldn't put it past him to have one of his many employees seek me out like a prairie dog looking out at the morning sun."

I have known from the first time I met Jack; he was George Peabody, the founder of JS Morgan & Co., when Julius Spencer was his junior partner.

In later life, George had a Time Machine built in the middle of the Bank Plaza Building in Salem. He found Doc Holyoke's laboratory in the basement of his old Salem Savings Bank. The Doc was looking into longevity, hoping to publish his findings in his New England Journal of Medicine. He came across the idea of time loops through bobble heading.

He realized that as you nodded off, you entered another dimension of time while daydreaming. Furthermore, he could remember entire conversations in which, on our side of the curve, only seconds had passed. And vice versa, when you felt like seconds passed, and you missed someone's entire train of thought. He practiced extending and shrinking time and developed an apparatus to further his abilities.

It was Rev. Bentley working for Thomas Perkins. Perkins gave Taft's father the building for their crypt for the Skull & Bones. Bentley was the biggest voice calling Rev. Morse of Yale a fraud with his Illuminati scare. It was he who helped Holyoke along to the other dimension, permanently, in his sleep before his hundred and first birthday. A little something from Stephen White's lab in the North River. White got away with the murder that the Tell-Tale-Heart was based on. He was the money behind President John Quincy Adams.

"Henry," the three of us turned to Ralph, "Um, Sinclair, that is, you haven't tried any?"

I lifted my glass back to him, but I settled back with my hot chocolate on my lap and began looking out the window.

Bentley lived in the house Edward Derby was confined to in his wife's body as she went about town in his. It was also built by Crowninshield, who brought the stoned elephant to America before Stephen White poisoned him. White planned Harrison's assassination with Clay and Webster.

I think that Lovecraft character who has been prying about Salem keeps daring to write a story about Derby's curse, something about a thing on the doorstep. I tried reading one of his tomes, it is now a doorstop on my doorstep.

"Sinclair," Henry A. called, "tell them about the time with the monkey and midget donkey!"

I bobbed my head awake. I waved and smiled, allowing him to finish the story.

So Bentley offered Holyoke's finds, for a price, to Peabody. It wasn't till after the Civil War that Peabody raided Charles Grafton Paige's laboratory before he burnt it down. Then later Paige, in his section of the Smithsonian, did manage to mix his science of electromagnetism and superconductors with Holyoke's findings to have a working machine. Before that lab caught fire too…

Peabody didn't trust his partner's son completely, so he would zap back in time to become Jack Morgan. Then, when his father, J.P. Morgan, began to be a burden trying to control the newly created Fed, he simply made sure he permanently nodded off too, and ran it as Jack. Stephen White killed Harrison in hopes of making the Fed at that time.

"Sinclair, I was about to check your pulse," Henry A. said as I bobbed back in time…for us to go through a tunnel.

Nothing happened.

As we broke through the darkness, during the momentary blindness as our cones adjusted, a volley of shots broke through the window.

Ralph slammed the president's head under him as he pulled his pistol. Dupin pulled out his Winchester and scanned out the window. In the distance, the train continued to bend in front of our car.

The shots stopped, and there was no one in sight. Maybe it was someone in the many trees we were passing under now at the mouth of the tunnel.

"Sir, we should retire to your Pullman and close the steel shutters," Smedley ordered. The car also had a concrete floor and roof between two layers of two-inch steel.

"Gentlemen," Warren began, "are you ready for another round of Bridge?"

Hoover just walked in to check on his president and balked at the thought. Next to him was Keno, brandishing his rifle he had since storming San Juan Heights with our departed friend, Teddy. Roosevelt that is. General Wood was in Cuba then too. Harding defeated him in the Republican Primary. Could Wood be positioning soldiers on the front cars that Smedley wasn't under the control of? The red cars...

I walked over to the bar to get another hot cocoa. The Nubian porter was behind the bar shaking a martini. I looked to tip him, but when I looked up, I saw him morph into the old professor from the Miskatonic University. "Oh, hi, Albert."

He had my cocoa ready for me. "Hello, Henry!" he said as he finished adding anise and some cinnamon.

"Perfect, as usual," after sipping the nectar. "I know Taft is on board keeping the Illuminati informed, but I haven't seen him much." President Taft's, now Superior Court Justice, father founded the Skull & Bones.

"You know that old adage about tomcats inflamed after coitus and getting stuck?" I nodded back, sipping my drink. "Taft had eaten some bad oysters with this red Irish lassie and swelled up—I heard she was hoping other parts than his stomach would grow, but they can't extricate him from the compartment. They just keep sending fresh girls in."

I shivered. "I have seen that naturalist enough in my life."

"Hughes is in the next compartment; they have been competing with each other. They were sending the girls back and forth. They have been fighting over the bench and bed," laughed Albert.

"What?"

"They both vie to be Chief Justice."

"Oh, Taft could do more lasting damage for Yog-Sothoth and the Illuminati through the years on the court."

"His lodge brother, Henry Luce, just put out their propaganda rag, Time," the old professor went on polishing his mugs. "This train is worse than the contingent the Popes brought that destroyed that town, with all the whoring that created the conclave…"

"Yeah, I heard Morgan was told by Schacht for Luce to interview some WWI corporal—some guy named Hitler they're promoting…"

"Schacht is up to something. Overnight he transforms the German economy from four million marks to the dollar to be on par? Sounds fishy. I wonder if they plan to wreck our Supreme Court like they are doing in the Weimar Republic."

"Hindenburg is trying to keep public opinion up by 'erecting' a large dirigible with his name blazing on it like a large international billboard," I said as I had stepped back and poked my hand through the bottom of my pocket. "I think it will go over like a led balloon."

"How about those gams?" Albert said, pointing to the woman frozen in the car entrance. "Why didn't we let them wear pants before—did you see her bum before she sat down? You couldn't see that in a skirt."

I looked at the Nordic beauty to my right frozen on a daiquiri, but still smoking...

"I hear Schacht is insisting on putting Thor's Cross on the tail fin; the Thule are up to no good again. You believe they are still trying to call Norwegian a Germanic language—Old Norse is the root of Germanic…a hundred years ago Germany didn't even exist!"

"Not that one—the blonde next to you, behind you..." Albert pointed and looked her up and down, ignoring how I tried changing the conversation. He took his time and let a little drool escape before he wiped his mouth. Albert could afford the look safely since she was caught in a Nordic blast, even though you could see a little bit of eyebrow go up in scorn.

"She isn't Caroline."

"And you're up tighter than a librarian tying her bun for Sunday mass, worrying about the redheaded half of his mother's twins at the office Christmas party who grabbed her buns, thinking he left his buns in her oven—loosen up! Pucker up and sock her one."

"Come on, who do you think took the pop shot?"

"Cherchez la femme…"

"I have looked already; she is not my type," I said, looking back at the girl at the entrance.

"You're pathetic—your sentence will be over sooner than later. Have you heard that the Soxs are playing their first game under their new owner?"

"They are playing this new team in New York, the Yengees. Twain would have loved a New York 'Baseball' team!"

"Those bums!" We both agreed and I shared some of my licorice with him; I forgot about his bad teeth…

"So who do you think is behind this?" asked Bjorn as he placed his back against the wall to allow the porter who called on Warren earlier to pass with a cocktail on a tray. I could see Prohibition was going on swimmingly. Even though the president quit drinking, it didn't stop the Jazz Age any.

"Too many possibilities," I said, beginning to smirk." I'm always looking to the Morgans… Not only do they own the Bank of England and The Federal Reserve, but JP is overseeing the creation of the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland. One bank to rule them all..."

Bjorn began drifting off—

"He is pretending it is to handle the war reparations. Just imagine what he could accomplish?" I continued not noticing.

"Um, yes; why should New York have two baseball teams—those Bums!"

"What?"

"Never mind, lets go." he blurted. Bjorn continued down the hall with compartments to either side. I was teetering back and forth, but his shoulders were so wide he could only totter a quarter inch in either direction. "Hoover was talking about the BIS last night when he excused himself from the game; he despises the game now, with the weasel from one of Morgan's subsidiaries. It seems Schacht and Hoover were discussing its prospects when he was in Germany and mentioned Lenin's dislike of the project right before he suffered his stroke."

"Hoover was playing baseball!"

"What are you talking about Henry!"

"Nothing—How did you hear that?" I asked, cocking my eye at him. "You're a little too large to be obsequious."

"By then he was deep in the vat," Bjorn laughed. "I left the table and plied him full of my melomel. Plus, that sergeant made sure his mug was full of shine. It is the only way Hoover could tolerate the game now. Ralph and I made a few thousand off him last night alone."

"Oh next time, let me in on that action."

"Henry, you don't even gamble.."

"I know, but it would of been fun to watch the train wreck."

"You should of heard some of the blue stories about him and Warren. They make Henry and Becket sound like teenage pimple-bummed virgins," Bjorn laughed.

"I did notice you two left before sunset," I said, shaking my head as I kept his gaze. "Did you take him to the red car?"

"You know Warren isn't constipated," Bjorn laughed. "He uses that as an excuse to work his way through the car with a series of quickies—we just followed our Commander and Chief down the hall."

"Not good; any of the suspects could send an assassin into the car," I shook my head in concern.

"Smedley was frustrated, being left outside of the door—he made the strangest coitus noises, and Smedley just started laughing under his breath. You should see how red his face got later, when the severity sunk in, the noises grated on him."

"I can see people talking with Dupin, excusing himself right after the president pretends to go to the john."

"He has to follow him or have Ralph do it either way," Bjorn laughed.

"Where are they now?"

"Warren is driving the train and I hear he is forcing his wife to feed the fire box…"

"This should be good…"

I led the way through the remainder of the red car through the dining car to the president's Pullman. Five cars on was the Dodge. Bjorn and I got some exercise trying to climb over it to access the baggage cars before we could get to the engine. I felt like a bandit in The Great Train Robbery. Our suits were a bit smoky as we entered the engine.

"Keep shoveling, Florence; I love watching you from behind," Warren said, eyeing his wife with a comic leer.

She threw some coal at him and wiped her brow, leaving another smear, or maybe she removed one? Hard to tell by now, but her dress was ruined. "Warren, you can keep your emerald!" she said, smacking the shovel into his chest. She left with Smith, the owner of the Alaskan Railroad; she has been keeping company with him in her Dodge.

"Ah alas, I thought she desired that token from the Punjabi puja," he said, laughing. "I might still give it to her for the laughs she gave me. I haven't seen her that bent over since our honeymoon—I could have used some of your mead, Bjorn."

"Do you care about her dalliances?" I asked, noticing how open he was with her. "With Smith…"

Warren turned white as a ghost. "You can see him!"

"Yes, he was slapping her on the ass as they left…"

"Oh him, I have mine, and I can't begrudge her her own," then Warren slipped in close and whispered as he pointed to his left, "Him."

"Who…"

"Never mind." With that, Harding left the engine but only made it to the platform that joined the engine to the tender. He took a seat, enjoying the afternoon sun.

"You know," the ghost of Smith said, "Cramer's time with you is almost over."

"Yeah, I have a four o'clock cabinet meeting on Cloud Nine." The ghost of Charles appeared, looking at his watch sitting on the other side of Warren.

"So what have you learned?" Jesse Smith asked.

"I led the country into the deep end of the pool and after the bankers pissed in it."

"That is about right," Cramer's ghost said as he poured Harding a drink.

Warren left the drink on his knee. "What now?"

"Not much; your life will be over with the next ghost," Smith stated.

"Yup," concurred the ghost of Cramer.

"What was the point of it all then?"

Cramer put his arm around his shoulder. "Learning. Things you learn now you won't have to learn in the next life. Sometimes we give the ability for redemption without retribution. Consider yourself lucky!"

Warren left his empty cup behind as he stood and waved to Ralph to stop the train so he could escort him back to his Pullman, where he took a nap.

…

When Warren woke to relieve himself, he found the Unknown Soldier sitting by his bedside drinking what looked like Dowgin's applejack as King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band played Chimes Blues on the phonograph, "I love that muggle on the trumpet; I think they call him Armstrong…"

"You are my final visitor?"

"I hope you don't mind the hood—I'm not sure that I want to see what they pulled out of the trench in the mirror…"

"Can I get your name?"

"No way to prove it, but I am Corporal Frank Kane at your service," he said as he swept into a bow with his right arm and then shook Warren's hand. "From now on we will be sitting just out of sight watching you and the others for the rest of the trip."

"I'm dead," Warren asked, as he pulled up the covers to his neck.

"Well yes," Frank shrugged as he put an arm on his shoulder.

Warren next found himself fully dressed, floating through the wall in the Pullman car where the others were playing poker. A young Frank Capra had just joined the game, but he and H.A. were deep in the weeds over Theosophy, the Common Man, Brotherhood, and the greedy over the needy.

"I always liked Whittier's sentiment of bare feet and nature; granted, my family might be the wealthiest in Iowa, but I do admire the simplicity without money."

"I always wanted to make that film one day; my mother said I was always schmaltzy… "

"I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and—a little lookin' out for the other fella, too…" H.A. said, leaning into the young Sicilian.

"I feel the same; I try to put the John Doe and…"

The ghost of Smith leaned through the wall and added, "Smith."

"Mr. Smiths into all of my stories."

"H.C., they had the right idea. He had it all worked out. He used to say to me, 'Son, don't miss the wonders that surround you, because every tree, every rock, every ant hill, and every star is filled with the wonders of nature.' I think he had it right."

Capra poured him some of Bjorn's melomel; he thanked him and placed it on the table. "Now the Senate should make these kinds of natural rules work; if you haven't got men that have learned to tell human rights from a punch in the nose, we are in trouble."

"The country has been sinking since the bankers took over," Capra said, taking a swig. "Nothing is naturally left in them. Morgan looked like he took several punches in the nose and kept on…"

"And let me tell you, Frank, when you become a guy with a bank account, they gotcha! Yes sir, they gotcha! Sad to say, I can be one of those helots…"

Sinclair sat and joined them when a Mexican waiter left Warren a martini. Warren got a little jumpy with his anti-immigrant stance, the recent death of Pancho Villa, and his refusal to acknowledge the new Mexican government. Well, Daugherty's and Mellon's refusal. He must of been napping during that meeting; again. Mellon was sending Gulf south of the border to exploit their oil fields.

"He seems a bit shifty," the disembodied Harding said, pointing at the porter.

"That would be ruining the game—if I told you who the murderer was," Corporal Kane said. "Don't you like a good mystery? This is like the Mystery on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. I love that Agatha."

"You mean there is another; I thought the Orient Express ran from Moscow…"

"No, I gotta ride that one in the war—I will always remember Milly… just imagine if everyone was in on your murder: the mafia bootleggers, Morgan and Mellon, Hoover working for the Krauts and Reds, Daugherty's minions, Villa's corporals, veterans from Tulsa—the Ohio Gang sure left you with the bag."

"Yes it is one hot potato…" Harding laughed, shaking Frank's hand while Frank had his arm around his shoulder.

As they left H.A., Warren, and the empty body controlled by providence, Warren's glass was seen to empty slowly on its own.

Anchorage, Alaska: July, 15th, 1923

The two apparitions floated over his wife's Dodge as she had her legs hanging out the window and sailed to the car he first sat with Cramer in.

The train came to a halt. They watched from a distance as everyone, under guard, led by Smedley and Dowgin, to a cavalcade for the body of Harding to drive the last nail in the Fairbanks rail.

A great crowd was waiting for them. The apparitions just mingled in. The body of Harding was handed a sledge hammer. On his third swing...

Another sniper attempted to hit him and nicked his ear. The disembodied Harding grabbed his ear in sympathetic pain, "Oh, nothing happened…"

His wife came running after from behind the trees with the other Smith and pushed Smedley off of Harding and escorted him back to the cars. Smith avoided us. He rode in the last car.

Florence didn't ride with Warren; he picked a fight over her and Smith, and she rode back to Seward alone with the driver. Sinclair thought he recognized the driver though.

Then we boarded the boat again and headed south. Warren picked a bunch of stag films and had the ship filled with seafood before departing. The Mexican crew on board filled the galleys and served the food.

Warren, after a certain film with a mule and midget, went to his wife's cabin.

We all took a joyous relief from the bridge game. Sinclair's hands were getting cramped. The Wallaces hung on the rail talking to Capra. Bjorn, Dupin, and Sinclair sat about telling tales of women. Sinclair just listened, thinking about Caroline. She passed four years ago from General Wood's curse, the Bird Flu's second wave. He would have another fifteen years till he married again in her next life; she liked starting fresh. I think he was immortal for the one reason alone, he hated childhood. What he even hated more is the time spent lonely looking for her again after she grew up.

"Quick, Warren is sick," she said nonplussed. "I think he had some bad crabs or something."

Doc led the way with at least five other doctors Warren invited on the trip.

When Sinclair got to his bedchamber, Doc was taking his pulse. "How are you feeling?"

"I woke up to find puke all over my shirt and bed. I even puked on my um…"

"Your wife said you had some bad crabs," Sinclair said.

"I had the salmon mousse—she did give me some bad crabs, but that was years ago."

Keno just walked in. "Louisa tends to come back with some fine seafood from her European trips; she is in Russia for her family's gunpowder concern in Russia." His wife was Louisa DuPont, and her family was making gunpowder since Washington' army.

The disembodied Harding feared, "Him too, I kind a like the fella—he can tell a joke; you believe he got kicked out of his own social club for toasting the sinking of the Lusitania…"

Keno has been absent, keeping a rear guard or front guard on the train. He came with his Winchester again.

"What is the cable there?" asked the disembodied Harding.

He read the notice that Daugherty wanted Hoover to handle things if all else failed. Also, Daugherty has a man on his daughter if he doesn't go along. His child out of wedlock was another thorn in his wife's side.

"Is she going to be alright?"

"She is safe from them—her mother is another story…"

"Can't be as bad as my mother…"

"Not much better…"

"So who knocks me off—Daugherty!"

"He is just a pawn in the big game of life. It's always where the choo-choo goes."

"I have put my choo-choo in enough tunnels to know!

"Needless, who kills me?"

"All will be revealed soon," said the Unknown Soldier' ghost.

August 2, 1923: San Francisco, California

The corporal and the president materialized in a hotel room occupied by Florence and Warren. Earlier he mangled the speech and withdrew to his room alone. Some say Florence almost broke the door down before he let her in.

She had all the doctors from the trip in rooms on either side and across from him, which kept Dupin, Keno, Sinclair, and Dowgin in rooms further off. At this moment, they haven't appeared yet, being caught in San Francisco's traffic. 

The doctors and Florence drove with Harding. He seemed to begin to falter after Florence handed him a glass on stage. He seemed parched during the speech. It was within the first few words he began to stammer. His tongue was lost within a groove inside a hundred-year-old barn. It took the Russian ballet and a partridge in a pear tree to extricate his meanings from the quagmire his brain fell in. There would never be enough Lux Flakes to clean up this mess. He almost pissed into the podium, thinking he was at one of his K Street poker games.

Smedley and Dowgin had a hell of a time steering him off the stage to his car.

Sinclair noticed Louie, his old driver, was driving; he drifted away after Caroline died. They were chums. 

He taught her to drive, Fast!

Sinclair had to learn to drive for the first time, ever, in all of his lives and hated it…

Louie saw Sinclair and just stared, lost for words.

There were lots of ghosts here in San Francisco for Sinclair. We weren't far from Nobb Hill. Timothy had his art mansion and school burned down, blaming it on the earthquake.

On Nobb Hill, Sinclair (when he was known as Edward F. Searle) met an old lover from a past life, a magical soul from the Sidhe. With her fortune, they hunted for the grail in its various forms through Europe and Japan for four years before her demise. With her fortune, they prevented many affairs from happening that could have been worse than the War to End All Wars, but that is a story for another time.

Timothy was her adopted son.

Caroline was her trusted aide.

Sinclair made a point of looking him up later.

Louie, I swear at gunpoint, sped downhill, leaping over several crossroads with only Harding and his wife. Sinclair rode with Keno, who acquired a Salmson AL3, which won the new Le Mans Race a few months ago, and they couldn't keep up with Louie in the limo. The rest followed in another car.

Luckily there was not a Doctor Miller in any of the cars; at least that was what I hoped.

Miller was present at the deaths of the presidents Harrison and Taylor. Poe and Sinclair failed to keep Taylor alive.

Sinclair Was beginning to think he and the new Dupin were going to fail again.

When we got to the hotel, Sinclair let Keno deal with the car as he rushed to his room.

Sinclair ran in and made it through the threshold before he was knocked on the head.

Yes, it was time for him and me to commune once more on Cloud 9 1/2.

I'm Harvey, a seven-foot púki in the shape of a hare who drinks any unattended glass of liquor.

"What is with... the rabbit!" yelled the disembodied Warren.

"Oh, he will be taking you past this realm," answered the Unknown Soldier. "Harvey. Well, Harvey can look at your clock… and stop it. And you can go anywhere you like, with anyone you like, and stay as long as you like, and when you get back… not one minute will have ticked by. That is what heaven is like; he can even hold your hand in Akron and repeat over and over, 'Poor, poor, poor, Warren' before you're ready to work on your retribution before your redemption. Take as long as you like, for as you see, time doesn't exist."

"Is he moving over there?" Warren said, pointing at Sinclair.

"Yes, I'm afraid for Henry's sake they have been friends a long time. I think they met in the basement of some old doctor's bank in Salem a long time ago, or was it a minute ago..." smirked the corporal.

Harding was dead on the bed.

…

"Cherchez la femme," I repeated.

"You still with me Henry," Harvey asked, "you should join the party too."

"Yep, slightly disoriented," I said, "I'm fine."

Florence was frozen. She had dropped the candlestick and was now frozen as she was about to throw a bottle of poison out the window. The bottle was just resting on a breath.

"Why!" asked Harding. "I mean, we hated each other, but that is no reason to kill anyone. Most marriages don't end that way. It's more spiteful to keep each other alive..."

"Morgan arranged for you to meet George Harvey; you had such a tiny paper, and he figured he would impress you as editor of Harper's Weekly," Harvey told him. "Wasn't it Harvey who introduced you to Florence?"

"The whole affair was staged…"

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts—Harvey you never told me you edited a paper too…" I said.

"I did find it strange when I handed your hat back; there were duplicate holes on either side…" Warren reflected.

"Yes, you had wondered what life would be like if you were more than a small-time editor, so I stepped in."

Harding just sat down and began to remember saving George Harvey, bailey before he was going to jump off the bridge himself.

"You have the option to return, and I can rescue you from your decision to jump while ensuring your newspaper thrives as a reputable local source. Alternatively, you can choose to maintain your position as president and embark on your forthcoming 'voyage of understanding,' " Harvey offered.

"I much prefer to be pleasant; I have tried to be ever so powerful…" Warren said.

"I wonder how the mystic editor Henry A. will handle the same bargain? I think he will accomplish some miracles before he gets to your point, Warren," Harvey stated. "A long as he can move past that fiasco with the sharecroppers, the fool will send them to the wolves. We all need some work, especially those who want to rise above..."

I just sat back and listened.

"Can I do one last thing for this dimension, if I can call it that?" Warren asked Frank and Harvey. "Can I fix her wagon and put something in motion for the good of all before I go back to Marion?"

So Warren created a squad through a letter he had left in his pocket to be found by Smedley. It cued him in on Morgan and asked him to create a squad not only to protect future presidents but to kidnap them, fake their deaths, and deposit them on some Pacific island where nobody would believe them. So if anyone wanted to 'Trump' him as president, they could quietly set him up with a tropical drink with a little umbrella in it before he or she could do any more damage.

Morgan never found out about it. He even propositioned Smedley to lead a coup against Roosevelt while Henry A. was vice president.

Also, he implicated everyone in his murder, throwing a shoe into many gears. Nobody, to this day, knows who killed Warren. Though his wife didn't get away with it. Morgan booked her on the largest boat in the world, owned by his White Star Line.

I love it when a plan comes together.

It's a wonderful life after all…

The End