"Who is going to die?"

A long silence.

"Michael-?"

"Yes?"

"When you put up a headstone-in Watertown-"

"Oh, Mrs. A, what's this morbid talk of headstones?"

"Listen to me. Along with my husband's name, I want the name Kent on it. Amanda Kent de la Gura-" She began to drift off, murmuring it over and over, "Kent. Kent-"

Crying silently, Michael Boyle held her hand long after she was unconscious.

vii

One the fifteenth day, she thought she had begun to hallucinate. She saw a familiar face, gray eyes, hair whiter than she remembered it- "Bart?"

"Yes, sweet, it's me."

"How-how is it possible?"

"Why, the story of the mob's attack has been telegraphed to papers all over the country. Along with the account of how you probably helped a nigra girl escape to Canada. You should hear them cuss you in Charleston! That's where I read about it-"

"Charleston! I-tried to write you in London-"

He shook his head. "I went home. Damned if I can altogether explain why-unless it was the feeling of starting to grow old among people I didn't know very well. The folk in Britain are marvelous. Polite. Hospitable-and the Royal Sceptre captaincy paid far better than I'd expected, once I added in the primage. But after I lost you, somehow I came to feel I-I didn't have anything. Not even a home. If a man doesn't have a woman-and I swore I'd never fuss with another until I met you-I suppose he should at least have a home. I never figured I'd do it, but one day I gave notice to Royal Sceptre and walked out. I confess I damn near bawled when the steamer sailed in past Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie and I saw the Battery in Charleston again. I'm running a little cotton packet up and down the coast-"

She tried to laugh; it came out as a faint rasp. "You-took sides after all."

"Guess I did, in a way."

"So did I-" An image of Jared's medallion drifted into her mind. "You were right, no-no one can stay out of it."

"Listen, you'll never get me to a political meeting, sweet! I'm content to savor the southern climate as is-I stay far away from platforms where Yancey and Rhett and some of the other secessionist fire-eaters puff out their sulfurous rhetoric-"

"There's-so much hate on both sides now-"

"Yes, there is." He looked at her with forlorn eyes. "It'll tear this country apart."

"The Union has to survive. The country has to survive-"

"Not certain it can, sweet."

"There's too much that's good at stake. Too much that was hard-won-"

"But it's a matter of principle on both sides. And the voices keep getting louder-"

"There are other voices. Kent's will be one soon. Against slavery-"

"Well, there you go!"

"But against bloodshed too-"

"Amanda," he said, "it's an impossible problem. The north will never countenance slavery, and the south will never give it up. Each wants its own way. That always leads to but one conclusion. 'Perish with-' "

Abruptly, he cut off the sentence, realizing it had a closer and more painful meaning.

She recognized his discomfort. "You were right about that too. Stovall's dead. I shot him. He attacked Louis-might have killed him-"

"Yes, the Irish lad informed me."

After a moment, she said, "Bart-I wish you'd bend down and kiss me. That-that's a frightful thing for an old lady to ask, isn't it?"

He put his face near hers.

"No."

"I expect I should have married you-"

"I know you should have, sweet."

"I did what I had to do. But I love you."

"Yes, I love you too. More than I can begin to tell y-"

Silence.

"Amanda? Did you hear-?"

In panic, he felt for her pulse- Thin. But it was there. She was only sleeping.

viii

On the morning of the seventeenth day, with the draperies open to admit the sun of another bright winter morning, she felt unusually lethargic. Breathing was difficult. She was struck by the certainty that she wouldn't live much longer.

One hand rested on a blue-covered legal document. The agreement of the Stovall estate to sell Kent and Son. It had arrived by messenger from Boston late the preceding night. Michael had brought it up and laid it at her bedside so she saw it the first thing when she awoke.

She wished she could have spoken to Louis. But he was still recuperating, still sleeping a good deal, Michael said.

All at once she heard a faraway melody.

The piano. The piano in the music room, the piano no one had ever played- And now familiar, melancholy notes rose upward through the house- Bart. The Chopin piece.

Somehow the music soothed her. Seemed not melancholy but full of sweet promise and healing. She let her mind range peacefully back across all the years, from the tepee of the young Sioux, Plenty Coups, to her marriage to Jaimie de la Gura-the turmoil in Texas-Cordoba and the birth of her son-Bart in California- And the end of her life here in New York.

It was time for an accounting.

On the credit side, she'd preserved the family. Put it in trustworthy hands. With Joshua Rothman and old Benbow and Theo Payne to assist him, Michael Boyle-a Kent in spirit now, if not in name-would serve well until Louis achieved his majority. She only prayed she hadn't warped her son's character too severely, prayed Michael would be able to mold him into an honorable man. At least there was a hope of it- Perhaps Jephtha would help when he came to the city. On Jephtha's side too, the family had heirs, his sons. Whatever their position on the divisive issues tormenting the country, they were Kents. With the proceeds of the Ophir claim in Hopeful, and with the promising reports from the Sierras, they would be wealthy men- If there were no war to destroy them, to destroy the nation- On the debit side, she knew she had at times been ruthless in order to survive, ruthless in obtaining her ends. So ruthless, Louis had very nearly been sacrificed. Yet from her ruthlessness had come the restoration of the Kent fortune. Perhaps that entry had a place on both sides of the ledger.

And the company. The company belonged to its rightful owners again. Her hand moved over the blue-covered document, a kind of caress- All at once she felt quite sleepy. The sunlight burned her eyes. Details of the room melted away in the glare- The appearance of that intense light told her the end was very near. She was terrified of dying alone. Bart and Michael had gone downstairs for breakfast with Rose, who had sat with her through the night. She tried to grasp the bell pull- She was too feeble to reach it.

Weary and frightened, she gave up trying to assess her own life. She remembered the Mandan legend of the vine; the great womanly hands left the vine alone, or tore it, denying paradise. The meaning of the legend brought a certain comfort. Only a Divine intelligence could fully and accurately judge a human life, and find it worthy or wanting- She'd taken lives. The man in Hopeful-and Hamilton Stovall-lingered most acutely in her mind. Those acts would weigh heavily in the judgment, she knew.

But the judgment itself was beyond her.

I am a Kent.

I did what I had to.

Let the verdict come down.

An almost childlike expression of pleasure came onto her face. Settling her head more comfortably on the pillow, she turned toward the intense light. She'd quite forgotten the light shone through a window in a specific house in a specific city in America- Or did it?.

She felt her strength waning. She was suddenly ashamed of her own fear.

Guilty she might be. But what human being was not? There were things in her past she needn't be ashamed of, things to be proud of; she wouldn't surrender so meekly to a condemning judgment- That's not what grandfather would have done.

Slowly, her eyes closed.

It was puzzling. The light remained.

Growing steadily brighter-.

Suddenly, clear and sharp, she saw the vine to paradise.

She spit on her hands and began to climb.

A Biography of John Jakes.

John Jakes is a bestselling author of historical fiction, science fiction, children's books, and nonfiction. He is best known for his highly acclaimed eight-volume Kent Family Chronicles series, an American family saga that reaches from the Revolutionary War to 1890, and the North and South Trilogy, which follows two families from different regions during the American Civil War. His commitment to historical accuracy and evocative storytelling earned him the title "godfather of historical novelists" from the Los Angeles Times and led to his streak of sixteen consecutive New York Times bestsellers.

Born in Chicago in 1932, Jakes originally studied to be an actor, but he turned to writing professionally after selling his first short story for twenty-five dollars during his freshman year at Northwestern University. That check, Jakes later said, "changed the whole direction of my life." He enrolled in DePauw University's creative writing program shortly thereafter and graduated in 1953. The following year, he received his master's degree in American literature from Ohio State University.

While at DePauw, Jakes met Rachel Ann Payne, whom he married in 1951. After finishing his studies, Jakes worked as a copywriter for a large pharmaceutical company before transitioning to advertising, writing copy for several large firms, including Madison Avenue's Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. At night, he continued to write fiction, publishing two hundred short stories and numerous mystery, western, and science fiction books. He turned to historical fiction, long an interest of his, in 1973 when he started work on The Bastard, the first novel of the Kent Family Chronicles. Jakes's masterful hand at historical fiction catapulted The Bastard (1974) onto the bestseller list-with each subsequent book in the series matching The Bastard's commercial success. Upon publication of the next three books in the series-The Rebels (1975), The Seekers (1975), and The Furies (1976)-Jakes became the first-ever writer to have three books on the New York Times bestseller list in a single year. The series has maintained its popularity, and there are currently more than fifty-five million copies of the Kent Family Chronicles in print worldwide.

Jakes followed the success of his first series with the North and South Trilogy, set before, during, and after the Civil War. The first volume, North and South, was published in 1982 and reaffirmed Jakes's standing as a "master of the ancient art of story telling" (The New York Times Book Review). Following the lead of North and South, the other two books in the series, Love and War (1984) and Heaven and Hell (1987), were chart-topping bestsellers. The trilogy was also made into an ABC miniseries-a total of thirty hours of programming-starring Patrick Swayze. Produced by David L. Wolper for Warner Brothers North and South remains one of the highest-rated miniseries in television history.

The first three Kent Family Chronicles were also made into a television miniseries, produced by Universal Studios and aired on the Operation Prime Time network. Andrew Stevens starred as the patriarch of the fictional family. In one scene, Jakes himself appears as a scheming attorney sent to an untimely end by villain George Hamilton.

In addition to historical fiction, Jakes penned many works of science fiction, including the Brak the Barbarian series, published between 1968 and 1980. Following his success with the Kent Family Chronicles and the North and South Trilogy, Jakes continued writing historical fiction with the stand-alone novel California Gold and the Crown Family Saga (Homeland and its sequel, American Dreams).

Jakes remains active in the theater as an actor, director, and playwright. His adaptation of A Christmas Carol is widely produced by university and regional theaters, including the prestigious Alabama Shakespeare Festival and theaters as far away as Christchurch, New Zealand. He holds five honorary doctorates, the most recent of which is from his alma mater Ohio State University. He has filmed and recorded public service announcements for the American Library Association and hasreceived many other awards, including a dual Celebrity and Citizen's Award from the White House Conference on Libraries and Information and the Cooper Medal from the Thomas Cooper Library at the University of South Carolina. Jakes is a member of the Authors Guild, the Dramatists Guild, the PEN American Center, and Writers Guild of America East. He also serves on the board of the Authors Guild Foundation.

Jakes and his wife have four children and eleven grandchildren. After living for thirty-two years on a South Carolina barrier island, they now reside in Sarasota, Florida, where Jakes has resumed his volunteer work on behalf of theaters and libraries while he continues writing.

Jakes in 1936, on his fourth birthday.

Jakes and his comedy partner, Ron Tomme (at right), won first prize for their comedy act on Rubin's Stars of Tomorrow, a talent show aired on WGN-TV, in Chicago, 1949. Tomme went on to star as the leading man on the CBS soap opera Love of Life.

Jakes with his daughter, Andrea, in the mid-1950s, in front of his home on North Walnut Street, Waukegan, Illinois.

Jakes received his fourth honorary doctorate, this one from DePauw University, in 1985 in Greencastle, Indiana. Jakes and his wife are both DePauw graduates. At left is Dr. Richard Rosser, then-president of the university.

Jakes with his wife, Rachel, at a boat party for sixty friends to celebrate the couple's fiftieth anniversary in 2001 at Calibogue Sound, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Jakes's 2006 publicity photo for The Gods of Newport, taken on the Cliff Walk at Newport, Rhode Island.

end.