“What?” Strucker inquired. “The Colonel is going to buy this bear?” He was watching Katherine appreciatively from the corner of his eye. Before long . . . he thought, she would be a very handsome woman.
Katherine caught his glance and it made her uncomfortable. She was caught in a transformation she did not really understand. A year ago she had stopped wearing her blond hair in pigtails and now let it fall around her shoulders. And she had noticed lately the way boys and some men looked at her. She knew she was pretty—she’d certainly been told it enough ever since she could remember—but she didn’t comprehend all that it meant, and thought about it from time to time. In any case, for now, to the great relief of her father, she was mostly interested in horses.
“The bear is for us?” Timmy wondered. He suddenly imagined in some way the bear sitting in one of The City of Hardford’s plush parlor chairs, with a bib around its neck, drinking a glass of milk . . .
Now the Colonel was waving more money in front of the gypsy’s nose and the man was clearly wavering. His gestures now included shrugging of the shoulders.
“What’s going on here?” Beatie said, emerging from the bedroom section of the car.
“We think father is trying to buy that bear,” Xenia said.
“What bear?”
“The one out there on the platform.”
“That’s absurd. What would we do with a bear?” Beatie huffed, peering out the window.
“Look,” Xenia said. Out on the platform it appeared a deal had been struck. The gypsy was now nodding his head and had accepted a wad of paper from the Colonel. In return, the Colonel accepted the bear’s leather rope leash from the gypsy.
“He’s done it,” Xenia groaned.
“You must be mistaken,” said Beatie. “We can’t have a bear. Bears are for zoos.”
“Wanna bet?” Xenia said.
“He must have been drinking again,” Beatie wailed. “Has the Colonel been drinking this morning?”
The Colonel led the bear toward the train on its leash while the gypsy watched with his hands clasped. His face seemed a long mask of sorrow, but every so often he glanced down at the wad of bills the Colonel had given him.
ARTHUR TOOK OFF FROM KIRKSVILLE just after sunrise. At last he had a fine, clear day, and his spirits soared with the Grendel. He wondered to himself what his life would have been like without flying, and as the day went by reflected on the bittersweet memories of his first rendezvous with ethereal things.
It had been, most oddly, nearly five years earlier at a dance in New York and a chance encounter with a beautiful woman, not his wife, at the Astor Hotel. Arthur had stepped out of the ballroom for a moment to smoke a cigar when he saw walking toward him from the lobby entrance an exquisite female accompanied by the famous actors John and Ethel Barrymore. She was tall and breathtakingly beautiful and Arthur managed a slight bow as she passed by. He thought for a moment she hadn’t noticed him, but she suddenly stopped her laughter with her companions and gave him a smiling nod. The Barrymores stopped, too, and in the awkward moment Arthur said, “I am a great admirer.”
Barrymore began to say something, but the young woman cut in, “Of mine, I hope.”
“Yes, certainly,” said Arthur. Her smile, her lips, her blue eyes all dazzled . . . “But I . . .”
“I am Harriet Quimby,” she said, “and these are—oh, but of course you know.”
“Yes,” Arthur said haltingly. “And I am Arthur Shaughnessy.”
“Miss Quimby is the theater critic for Leslie’s Weekly,” Barrymore said by way of introduction. “We have all just come from one of Georgie Cohan’s silly farces.”
“We’re going to the lounge for a supper. Would you join us?” Harriet Quimby said.
Arthur was stunned at the brazenness, but somehow, coming from her, it did not seem untoward. After all, these were theater people. He suddenly felt brazen himself. “Well, I am in here,” he said, nodding toward the door to the ballroom. “Why don’t you come and join me? There’s plenty to eat and drink, and grand music, too.”
“A dance?” Ethel Barrymore said.
“Yes, the Nine O’Clocks,” Arthur replied. “But we’re quite sociable. After all, this is New York. And it would be a grand coup for me to introduce your party to my friends.”
“It’s not a costume ball, is it?” intoned Barrymore, who in fact was dressed in evening clothes.
“Heavens, no,” Arthur replied. “Just a little get-together of friends. We do it twice a year.”
“Well . . .” Ethel said. “You are so kind . . .”
“Oh, let’s!” Harriet Quimby injected, taking them both by the arms. “We might get to meet fashionable people.”
Barrymore looked mischievously at his sister and Arthur led the trio into the grand ballroom of the Astor, where five hundred people were dancing away. He threaded them toward his table, where Xenia was seated with their friends, and made his introductions. The rest of the guests were duly impressed by the Barrymores because even if they were theater people, they were presently the most famous theater people on earth. Barrymore danced with Harriet, Arthur danced with Ethel, and when they had all settled back down at the table and champagne and various canapés and caviar had been brought and consumed, Arthur found himself next to the beautiful Harriet Quimby, who asked, “And so, Mr. Shaughnessy, what is your profession?”
Arthur told her—at the time, he was not first vice president and general manager, but simply vice president in charge of freight operations in the New York office.
“How interesting,” Harriet said politely.
“No, not really,” Arthur replied. “Not unless you find the moving of all sorts of things all over the place interesting. I would think your work at Leslie’s Weekly far more fascinating than what I do.”
“That’s not the half of it,” Barrymore interrupted. He quickly swallowed a mouthful of Beluga caviar to finish his thought. “Harriet is the rarest of avis—she is an aeroplane flier, as well.”
“You . . . are an aviator?” Arthur asked.
“The only female in the world to drive a flying machine,” Barrymore declared cheerfully.
“No, that’s not so,” said Harriet. “There is another, my friend Miss Moisant. Her brother was killed in an exhibition near New Orleans last year. You might have heard of it.”
“Well, that’s just . . . well. I think it’s wonderful,” Arthur said.
“Why don’t you come out to the aerodrome and see us sometime?” Harriet said.
“Where is the aerodrome?” Arthur asked.
“Near Mineola, on Long Island,” she replied. “We’ll be flying tomorrow afternoon.”
NEXT MORNING ARTHUR HAD PUT XENIA ON THE TRAIN back to Boston and went straight to a motorcar agency, where he rented a long red Chrysler convertible and drove it to Mineola and the Moisant aerodrome. He arrived at about two, just in time to watch Harriet Quimby glide to a perfect landing on a lush grass strip in her new two-seat Blériot monoplane, painted pure white. Arthur had seen airplanes before, but never a monoplane—all the rest had two or three sets of wings. Harriet emerged from the cockpit in a peach-colored flying suit and white silk scarf. She looked stunning.
“Oh, Mr. Shaughnessy, you’re here!” Harriet cried. “What a delight!”
“Well, yes,” Arthur said a little sheepishly, “I thought it would be smart to see what the competition is up to.”
Harriet Quimby laughed heartily. “Oh, I don’t think your big railroads are going to have to worry about us in our little flying machines,” she said. “We only do this for a pastime. To soar with eagles . . .”
“That’s a handsome machine of yours,” Arthur ventured.
“Would you like to go up?” It seemed to Arthur an especially warm invitation.
“Well, I . . .” Arthur hesitated. Would he?
“Oh, do! I promise I won’t do anything rash. No loops or anything. Just straight and level—the first time.”
Arthur shuffl
ed a little. He had in the back of his mind thought this might happen and that he would find himself sailing though the skies with the beautiful Harriet Quimby, but now . . . and a woman . . . but if she would do it, how could he . . .
“They’ve fueled me up,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. Arthur stood mute. It’s now or never; carpe diem, Arthur . . .
SO ARTHUR SHAUGHNESSY CLIMBED INTO THE COCKPIT of Harriet’s airplane and began for himself an experience that, to his mind, changed his life forever.
Harriet was an expert flier. She had performed acrobatic stunts at the inauguration ceremony of President Madero in Mexico City in 1911, and only a few months before had become the first woman to fly across the English Channel. She was a marvelous instructor, patient and good-humored. In four weeks’ time, Arthur was flying solo, first in a little Curtis biplane trainer, and then Harriet’s own Blériot.
Arthur went home to Xenia in Boston on Fridays and returned to New York on Mondays, but during the week, as the spring days grew longer, he would drive out to Mineola with Harriet in the afternoons for a few hours of flying time. Afterward, they would ride back to the city and often dine together. Sometimes Arthur wondered what his reaction would be if she moved to take things to a different level. She was a joyous, free-spirited woman whom most men would probably find irresistible, but, at least in Arthur’s company, she blithely reversed her occasional advances, reaching out and touching his arm sometimes during an animated exchange, but then withdrawing her hand immediately.
For her part, Xenia did not attempt to strip Arthur of his interest, either in flying or in Harriet Quimby; he talked freely with her about his flying experiences. Quimby she could understand, but flying she could not. It seemed to be constantly on Arthur’s mind, a preoccupation she hoped would eventually wane. Then, one day in mid-May 1912, Arthur announced to Xenia that he had invited Harriet to come to Boston to stay with them while she was participating in a big flying exhibition over Boston Harbor.
Xenia was gracious and even grateful, because she assumed that if an affair had been in progress, Arthur would not invite the woman in question to stay in her home. Both Harriet and her flying machine arrived a week before the air show, courtesy of the NE&P, and Xenia gave a big dinner for her and, when the evening was done, had satisfied herself that she in fact liked Harriet Quimby very much and hoped they, too, might become friends.
Moreover, Arthur had arranged for Harriet’s date at the dinner to be Mick Martin, who arrived full of fun and stories and dressed in a fine tuxedo with a gold wolf’s-head collar piece that had sparkling rubies for its eyes—gaudy, but Mick could bring it off. When Harriet left the room for a moment, Mick had whispered to Arthur, “Thanks for this, bucko. She’s a stunner, all right.”
In the beginning, Mick and Harriet hit it off grandly. He not only took her to lunch next day, but went flying with her later, and then took her to dinner by themselves that night. Xenia remarked to Arthur that this might be the start of serious intentions and he agreed, although he felt somewhat slighted, since he himself was attracted to Harriet. Somehow it still bothered him that Mick was getting the girl, as usual.
Several nights later they were all going to the theater but Mick wasn’t present. When Arthur asked if he was coming, Harriet said, sharply, no. Xenia later asked Harriet, but her answer was vague, and when Xenia persisted, Harriet made it plain she didn’t wish to pursue the subject. Arthur asked Mick about it, too, and got a similar reaction. Clearly something had happened.
On the afternoon of the aerial show Harriet flew a number of stunts before a crowd of thousands, and as her finale she was to fly all the way out to circle the Boston Light, twenty miles to sea and back. She had asked Arthur to fly with her, but he was busy in the crowd with his parents, Xenia, and the kids, and so Harriet took along the organizer of the event, a man in a straw boater and an ice-cream-white suit. The two took off in a clear late afternoon sky and the throngs cheered as her plane faded to a black speck on the horizon. Not long afterward, after circling the lighthouse, Harriet’s plane reappeared, the sun glinting golden on its white gossamer wings.
Then, just as the Blériot returned over the tidal flats toward a landing, it seemed to tip downward. The tail rose, higher and higher, until it looped beyond vertical, and to everyone’s horror a body suddenly was ejected from the aircraft, clutching what appeared to be a hat, legs and arms thrashing as it headed thousands of feet downward toward the flats—and then another; they could just get the glint of the sun on the peach-colored flying suit. The plane, pilotless now, slowly righted itself and spiraled down in ever-decreasing circles as the two bodies smashed into the mud of the inner harbor shore.
It had happened so suddenly. People rushed from the shore out onto the flats, floundering knee-deep in the gray mud toward where the bodies had landed. The airplane inexplicably glided to an almost perfect landing way out on the flats, its wheels sinking into the mud and the engine still running until the propeller dug into the muck and stopped.
They hauled the crushed, mud-covered bodies of Harriet and the air show organizer to shore, but Arthur had already hurried off a stunned Xenia, the kids, and his parents as quickly as possible. He spent the next days under a cloud of despondence, and wondered if he would ever fly again. He was among the mourners at Harriet’s funeral and joined the sad cortege to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
That had been nearly five years past, and Arthur Shaughnessy the orphan-tycoon had continued to fly. Now he had long since flown past Kansas City and was headed for Wichita. The reception he found there was far greater even than the one he’d received in Kirksville. There must have been a thousand people on hand to greet him, and again he was feted and bedded in style and comfort. He figured he was winning the race by now, though by what margin he could not tell. He calculated he had flown about eight hundred miles.
MEANWHILE, THE NE&P NO. 1 WAS ROLLING ALONG through the flat Arkansas farmlands from Memphis south and west toward Dallas, heading into a huge red setting sun that reflected through the windows on the Colonel’s face as he declaimed over the situation in Mexico. A layer of haze from Strucker’s cigarette drifted across the salon, almost like a fog. Beattie fanned her nose at it.
“I do not exactly understand these communications,” said the Colonel, holding up a telegram that had been received from his Boston offices at the Memphis depot. “There’s been some sort of trouble at Valle del Sol, some kind of cattle rustling. People were . . . well, it’s garbled.”
“My stars!” Beatie cried. “Cattle rustling? I thought that went out with the last century.”
“I don’t know why they can’t be clearer about these things,” the Colonel grumbled, shaking his head. The family had all gathered in the parlor section of the dining car, waiting for dinner to be served. From the galley, pungent aromas of roasting beef floated through the car. The children had occupied themselves with a Ouija board, while the others listened to the Colonel’s assessment of the situation in Mexico. They had spent the afternoon playing with the bear, which they had named Sherman in honor of the late Union general. Timmy had wanted to name it Teddy, but the Colonel wouldn’t hear of it—he’d name nothing of value after what he called “that four-eyed backstabber.”
After a while, the bear had been banished to the baggage car and the Colonel sat at his elegant walnut desk in The City of Hartford and spread out several telegrams that had been waiting for him at the station. Strucker was sitting in his great parlor chair methodically soaking up gin, but was witty and charming, at least by his own lights.
As the train rocked and clattered into the twilight, Colonel Shaughnessy was lost in his own thoughts about his crumbling empire. He had his people all over Washington working feverishly to secure even one of the lucrative government war contracts that the other roads seemed to come by so easily. Maybe his attitude toward Woodrow Wilson had something to do with it; maybe Wilson had heard that the Colonel had referred to him as a “namby-pamby” during a poker g
ame in Philadelphia a few months back. Maybe it had gotten out that the Colonel had secretly given money to the walrusteen former president William Howard Taft in hopes he might run against Wilson in the next election. Or perhaps it was someone else in Washington whose toes he had stepped on. In any event, just one of the contracts to ferry munitions, grain, clothing, and other war items to Great Britain and France would be enough to dig him out of this present hole. It was infuriating—but he was not done yet. Not by a long shot.
Scanning his communications from Boston, the Colonel found most of them routine until he came to the several messages concerning the general situation in Mexico.
“A fine kettle of fish,” said the Colonel. “Someone’s stealing my livestock and, from what I can make of it, sounds like they’re blaming it on Pancho Villa.”
“Sounds pretty serious,” said Xenia.
“Well,” the Colonel replied, “he’s supposed to be way over in the state of Coahuila, and that’s a lot of miles from Valle del Sol.”
“Cattle stealing,” Strucker observed. “It appears you have a delicate situation on your hands, my dear Shaughnessy.” Strucker was secretly delighted by the news.
“Yes, well, if it’s so,” the Colonel replied. “But these people get hysterical—especially the Mexicans. They see Villa everywhere down there. Think he’s some kind of Robin Hood character—steal from the rich, give to the poor—that kind of nonsense. They even believe he can actually change himself into animals to thwart his enemies—dog, owl, wolf—and disappear into the wilderness. It’s getting to be ridiculous. Every time some two-bit bandit wants to steal something, he pretends to be with Villa. Goes on all the time. Villa’s never bothered us before. Let’s be sure our facts are straight before we go making a lot of assumptions.”
“Where will we get these facts?” Strucker inquired.
“El Paso,” the Colonel replied majestically. “They know everything at El Paso.”
AT DAWN, ARTHUR PUT GRENDEL INTO A SKY so clear blue it looked drinkable. A pale full moon hovered on the western horizon. Grendel left Wichita behind, with Amarillo ahead, where Arthur would put down about midday to refuel, then take off again to land in desert scrub for the night. So far Arthur had only had to change oil, clean the firing plugs, and tighten two hose clamps. The machine was performing marvelously.