Trina’s younger brother was a recently commissioned ensign in the navy and was serving on the newest battleship, the Alabama. She had no idea where he was, except that the ship was on a South American cruise. She hoped it was out of harm’s way, although she knew in her heart that it would not be so forever. Her father was a wealthy investor, descended from a long line of equally successful men. He was currently out west buying up oil rights. Jacob Schuyler had a feeling that the internal combustion engine was going to be important in the future and wanted to be prepared for that day. He was, Trina told Patrick, buying up the oil drilling rights to hundreds of thousands of acres almost for pennies apiece. She had been in contact with him by telegram, and he was trying to make it back from Texas, where oil had been found and was beginning to be drilled in profitable quantities. The first well, she laughed, was something named Spindle-Top.
When she found that Patrick was from southern Michigan, she asked him if he knew Henry Ford.
“No, I’ve never actually met him, but I know who he is and understand he’s trying to line up investors for a new corporation that will make cheap automobiles. He hasn’t asked my family to invest. Although we’re not poor, I don’t think we’d be interested in such a risky endeavor.”
He continued. “My family has lived in the Detroit area for a couple of generations. My grandfather was a blacksmith and gradually expanded from repairing implements into making farm machinery. My father made the enterprise very profitable, but they wouldn’t be interested in Ford. At least not yet and not as investors, although it wouldn’t surprise me if they were interested in working with him as a supplier. I haven’t followed those goings-on very much. I just know what I’ve read in letters from home. I chose the army, not farm machinery.” He laughed. “Why, has Ford contacted your father?”
“Yes, but Father’s not interested in a direct investment either. But he did inform Ford that he would like to sell the automobiles if he was able to make them. That and oil are the extent of his interests at this time.” She thought for a moment. She had ridden in an automobile exactly once in her life and found it an experience that was both frightening and exhilarating. “If Ford succeeds, do you think the army would ever use automobiles instead of horses?”
“Not for a long, long time. The automobile would have to be made reliable as well as inexpensive. That and it would have to be able to go cross-country over rugged terrain like a horse, and there would have to be fuel dumps to keep the things going. And what about mechanics for repairs? It would take a major reorganization of the army to accommodate automobiles. No, I don’t think that will happen for a while. Although,” he demurred, “there are other countries that are experimenting with putting machine guns on them and protecting them with armor plate.” He did not add that the current U.S. Army was firmly entrenched in the last century and not, thanks to Nelson Miles, very interested in future developments.
She asked him why he joined the army and not the navy and was amused at the response: he got seasick.
Quietly, they got around to the reasons why they both were still single. Trina readily admitted that her wealth had attracted many potential suitors when she was younger, but her fond and doting father would not push her into a relationship she did not want. She had known from early in her youth that she would never be a raving beauty according to the standards of the time. Her intellect and forceful personality scared off potential suitors, however obsessed with money they might have been. Too many men didn’t like dominant women or were afraid of them. There were also those who felt her quest for learning and athletics smacked of Bohemianism.
When she mentioned that fact to Patrick, it perplexed him. Since his simplistic view of Bohemianism meant a degree of sexual promiscuity, he found himself wondering about her, and also wondering why he was concerned. Before he could wonder more, Trina answered his unasked question.
“I am hardly a Bohemian. I am probably more conservative than an old dowager.” She frowned. “Why do people fear me when I try to be a little different? All I want is the freedom to be me, to learn, to search. Does that make me a Bohemian?”
Her answer relieved him. “Of course not.” Now why was he so relieved?
“Do I frighten you, Patrick?”
He lay on the ground, his face looking into the latticework of tree limbs while she sat farther in the shade, her back against the tree trunk. “Naw. After fighting Apaches, Spanish, Germans, and the odd drunk in a garrison town, I’m not frightened of you at all.”
Patrick told her about growing up an only child in Michigan, around Detroit, and what it was like being a soldier, moving from place to place and never really being settled. He had a lot of friends and was part of a fraternity, but he had little opportunity for close relationships. As for women, there were very few in a military compound, and those who were there were either already taken or not worth taking. It was, he told her, a strangely monastic existence. Not that he was a saint, but there was no reason to bring up everything.
He told her that for some time he had been considering leaving the military. “I think I may be through with war and killing. I know I don’t want to sell farm machinery, but I would like to do something like what I did at West Point—teach. I’ve friends at the University of Michigan and maybe I can get something there. With what I get from the family business, and a few other investments I’ve managed to make, I could live there quite comfortably.”
Trina nodded. “I wonder now if I could ever go back to living in New York. It’s like a phase of my life that’s closed. It’s occurred to me that I was never really comfortable in the city. For all its cosmopolitanism, it can be strangely restrictive. I don’t think I will ever go back there to live. Those apartments I lived in were rented. It’s as if we knew we would not put down permanent roots.”
Against their wishes, the afternoon passed. As the sun descended, Patrick gathered their belongings and they drove the carriage slowly back to town and her house. When they arrived, Heinz informed him he’d found suitable accommodations with a local farmer a couple of miles down the road. He’d done so by appealing to the man’s patriotism and by outbidding another man.
The four of them ate a quick and light dinner prepared by Molly. Both Patrick and Trina were openly pleased that Molly and Heinz had managed to negotiate a sort of unarmed truce. With dinner finished, it was time to depart. Patrick told Heinz to get the horses, which gave him a moment to say a quiet good-bye to Katrina.
As they stood by the open door, Patrick had a feeling of longing. He wanted to touch Trina, but he feared that simply reaching for her hand would hurt her even more than the possibility of rebuff would hurt him. They stood in silence for a minute until Trina solved the problem. She reached up and kissed him softly on the lips. “I’m not afraid of you either, General Patrick. Please come back to me. I would appreciate it very, very much.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CAPTAIN ROBLEY EVANS, Fighting Bob to his peers and the press, paced the deck of the battleship Alabama and peered into the mist. He had a feeling of utter impotence. The Alabama was one of the finest and newest American warships afloat; yet with the distant sounds of ships’ guns echoing about, she was forced to crawl at less than one-third her rated speed of sixteen knots. He wondered if she was moving at all. It was maddening.
The powerful Alabama was designated BB-8, or the eighth modern battleship in an expanding American navy. It displaced more than twelve thousand tons, was more than 370 feet in length, and had a crew of just under seven hundred. The only newer American battleship was the Wisconsin, BB-9, currently cruising the West Coast.
“Anything, Mr. Lansing?”
“No, sir. The lookouts think they can see the sky, so the mist may be breaking up, but until then we are well and truly blind.”
Evans breathed deeply of the warm, moist air. What on earth had caused a mist at this time and place? It only showed how little control man has over the planet. According to the navigator’s best estimate, made less than an hour ago when they could see, the Alabama should have been about five miles off Saint Augustine, the ancient city on the east coast of Florida.