5. The Middle Road - Tuesday, July 30th, 1912

As the night deepened I found myself restless, unable to sleep and oddly missing the sound of automobiles. Missing the whinny of horses…the little noises of a city I'd never heard before, so different than the restless wind outside a lonely tower. Upon our return they'd certainly not been a comfort to unaccustomed ears, yet as the days had passed in his presence they'd somehow come to soothe me. They were the sounds of people and reminded me that I would never be alone again.

Yet now I was.

For the first time since our return I felt distant from this man beside me. Unable to sleep, I slipped from the bed in my dressing gown, rising without waking him, looking upon his face in the faint light from outside then turning away. Wishing I could put troubling thoughts to rest, I stepped out from the room for the bath. I'd only closed the door behind myself when Peter Ryan's door opened and he emerged down the hall.

"Oh, so sorry." He said in barely a whisper, obviously not anticipating the presence of another in the lateness of the hour. "I...didn't expect to find anyone up at this hour."

"Neither…neither did I." I answered, pulling unconsciously the white of my dressing gown about myself. "I was just attending the bath."

"Likewise." He said. "But I am in no hurry, Miss. Please, do go ahead."

I smiled abashedly and entered, taking care of matters before emerging after an obligatory wash of hands. With an awkward exchange of smiles we traded places in the narrow hall. Unable to go back to sleep, I'd found myself sitting upon the sill of the screened hallway window looking outside, listening to that insect chorus.

"So…" He said, emerging from the lavatory with the swish of water behind him. "You and your Father are interested in Shoreham? Are you perhaps considering settlement there? Pardon my observation, but I could not help but notice after your father's request that you might have fallen upon hard times."

"Is it so obvious?" I questioned, though somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I likely should not have. "I am afraid we have."

"I am sorry to hear that. And widowed, I suppose?"

I paused before I spoke, realizing that I was not particularly comfortable speaking to men. Or women, for that matter. "Some years ago. I am his only child. We were hoping to impose on family here, but have found them no longer present." He was smiling at me and I felt most guilty at the lie.

"I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps Shoreham would offer a better chance? It is a pretty community."

"And what about yourself, Mr. Ryan?" Like Booker this unfamiliar man was attractive though darker haired; leaner...tall with a narrow face and brooding blue eyes.

"About what?" He answered, his gaze unswerving from mine.

"Your family. You'd mentioned you have a child? I hope that you are not a widower also."

"Oh…" He said, that smile upon his face perhaps lessening. "No. A widower I am not. My wife is simply too burdened to travel with me, what with our little boy and all."

"I do appreciate you offering us a lift." I managed awkwardly. For a moment it was quiet and the only sound was the crickets.

"If you are meaning to return to your chamber, please, do not let me delay you."

He was looking at me and me him. I half looked over my shoulder. "It's no delay. I found myself unable to sleep."

"Perhaps a walk then?

Save for the foray to the market, I'd not been anywhere without Booker...so it was both unnerving and invigorating to have such and invitation. "As long…as long as it is short."

Together we descended the stair to the foyer, treading upon its wooden floorboards before exiting through the unlocked front doors. It was cool outside, and save for the lone street lamp, dark. I was in my slippers and so felt every crevasse of the porch. At the side hung a swing wide enough for perhaps two. Mr. Ryan smiled and with an uncomplicated flourish of hand offered me a seat. "Fancy a swing?" Faintly and uncertainly I smiled and sat, brushing the nightgown's white linen beneath my thighs. After a moment he accompanied me. I'd never sat upon a swing before, and was both amused and disconcerted when with his feet he began to move us. I'm sure my eyes opened wide before I looked him, and being unable to suppress it giggled. "What is so amusing?"

"I...I've never been on one of these before." I could only say.

"Never been on a swing before?" He chuckled though not cruelly. "Not even with your Father? Might I ask how old you are, Evelyn?" I was too busy with the sensation of my body moving out of time to realize he was talking to me. "Evelyn?"

"Sorry?" I finally said, looking up.

"How old are you?" His eyes were intent upon mine now, and with both the swing and his gaze I had yet to grow accustomed to the sensation. "Nineteen, I believe. Perhaps twenty. I've never really asked."

"You don't know your own birthday? How is that even possible?" He chuckled in amazement. "Neglect I tell you, and perhaps abuse!"

After a moment I realized he was kidding me, which ameliorated the embarrassment slightly. Yet in truth I didn't know, though surely my father did, and I realized suddenly how strange it was to think of Booker as that…and that I didn't want to.

"No. It…it has never come up."

"Evelyn..." He said quietly, those eyes narrowing in both puzzlement and intent as he took my hand. I felt my heart increase. "I realize you've been perhaps lacking for things, but before you moved away from Missouri...did you have a suitor? A fiancée, perhaps?"

I'd only read those words in romances. "Mr. Ryan, I..." I paused, for his eyes were unwavering and his movement ever subtly closer. "I must confess I have not."

"Good." He said and caressed my shoulder, moving after a bare moment to kiss me.

I had been raised in a tower but knew married men should not dally with unattached women. Realizing what was about to transpire, I drew back and turned my face away. With my eyes closed, he was enough of a gentleman that he stopped, and together we sat there in awkward silence, just us and the crickets. It was my fault, I decided, for not having had a girlhood where I'd have learned the method to anticipate and forestall such happenings. "I...I'm sorry if I've given you false impressions, Mr. Ryan. It was not my intent to in any way lead you on. Please...please accept my apologies."

"Your apologies?" He said, taking my hand. He raised it and applied to its back a gentle kiss. "My apologies. It is just that I've learned that a man's lot in life is to seek out and pursue what he finds desirable. He is limited only by his ambition."

"But...your wife..."

Now it was his turn to sigh...to look away. "And, perhaps, other things. Marriage, Evelyn, is not all that it is made out to be. I hope that someday you do not find that out."

I thought about it for longer perhaps than I should have, finding myself for vaguely comprehensible reasons sorry for the man. "Mr. Ryan..." I finally said. "I had hoped for a continuation of our earlier company, but perhaps…perhaps I should retire...before my father misses me."

#

Being on the western side of Mrs. Swezey's home, the coming of dawn wasn't disruptive. No sunbeams danced the wall nor warmed my face. In fact it remained cool enough to redouble the blankets despite the light. Elizabeth was still at my side as the sun rose

I'd been awake for a while by then, thinking of the previous night, worried stiff over what I feared to be unfolding. For some reason during the night Elizabeth had returned to bed and pressed particularly close, insisting silently that I hold her. When I'd realized she was troubled I'd opened my eyes, wondering if she too had been back to Columbia in her dreams. Now with morning at hand I placed her wrist gently upon her chest and sat, hanging over the side of the bed, forearms draped over my thighs.

What the hell I was going to do?

I didn't recollect much from what had happened after Columbia, but I distinctly remembered her putting me beneath water. Perhaps not her, but close enough to know that I didn't risk going back there, and that was exactly what Elizabeth and her tears portended. Not that I minded dying...I'd done more than enough to deserve those wages in my life. But what man who'd truly lived hadn't?

To those who'd never experienced it, war was insanity, a pointless enterprise of killing and blood. To most who have lived it, that conception was doubly affirmed...with the exception that you were in it, and in the thick of the matter realized you had a choice...to fight like hell for survival or roll over and die. In that choice lay everything, for either way death was coming. Most tried to postpone the date, hopefully to much later. I'd never been one to roll over...particularly when I had a reason to fight.

But that fact did little to settle my nightmares.

I took to the bathroom and cleaned up, brushing teeth, shaving the whiskers from my face, looking back into the eyes of the man I'd come to loathe. Had I ever really had a choice? Perhaps once on a cold Dakota morning I had, but as I'd found out then, making the right choice could be impossibly hard when one's fears and insecurities got in the way. Or desires. Wiping the stray shave cream away with a hand towel, I turned back to our room whose door was still ajar.

Lying there upon white sheets and pillow Elizabeth was at peace, hair fallen gently over ear and neck, lashes dark and closed, mouth slightly ajar as she took breath. I stepped back in to my hanging shirt, apparently brought in the night before by Mrs. Swezey. As I buttoned up my eyes traced the gentle upturn of her nose and lips...the fragile clasp of her fingers upon her chest. She was the best part of my life. Perhaps the only good thing I'd ever made. And we were supposed to be safe. We didn't need this Tesla, and we sure as hell didn't need to find a tear.

The socks and pants were likewise fresh and clean, though of my boots I couldn't have said the same. With travelling to come, they would have to suffice. "Elizabeth." I said, nudging the bed as I tied my neckerchief. "Time to get up."

Blearily she opened her eyes, voice raspy. "Booker?"

"Yeah." I smiled, amazed at the tiniest flutters and details of her. She sat up, hair spilling over her neck and nightshirt's shoulders to rub her eyes. I plopped down beside her to pull my boots on. "Sleep well?"

She brushed her hair back and furrowed her countenance at me, fine eyebrows intent. "I'm not certain."

I kissed her on the forehead. "I love you. We're going with Ryan, so you ought to get ready." Realizing what I'd said, her eyes lit up and she suddenly reached out and hugged me.

The way she'd beamed made me happy despite my worries as I headed downstairs, finding Mrs. Swezey there preparing breakfast. Having been catch as catch can over the last weeks for meals, it was welcome to have a square one waiting. "Good morning, Mr. Montgomery." She said as she set the placements.

"Good morning, Ma'am. Perchance have you seen Mr. Ryan about? He'd agreed to give us a ride up to Wardenclyffe this morning and I'm loathe to miss it. We walked quite enough yesterday."

She glanced out the window and over to the idle swing. Though the screen door was closed, the front door was open and a coolness flowing from it. From there I heard a grunt. "Yes, Mr. Montgomery. I believe he is outside loading his automobile. Breakfast will be set in five minutes. Can I count on you and your daughter to attend or are you in too great a hurry?"

I looked outside then back to her, wondering if she wanted the company or was only being hospitable. With the empty chair at the table's head and light travel of her house, I suspected the former. "How about if I find out?"

The screen door clattered as I headed out onto the porch, my face meeting morning air that was both cooler more refreshing than any on a late July day had a right to be. It had been a clear night I supposed, and with a brief glance to my right I found the pale green of the swing. For a moment I saw myself rocking there with Elizabeth, but realized time was fleeting. Down upon the dirt courtyard Ryan was loading a suitcase into the rear trunk of the red Mountaineer, one he seemed to have a degree of trouble with. "Need a little help there, pal?"

Ryan looked up the steps to me with surprise and even trepidation. With a concerted shove he secured his bag into the bonnet. "No, I think I'm quite all right, Mr. Montgomery, but thank you kindly." He hesitated before speaking, and again I could hear that reticence in his young voice. "Are...are you and your daughter still interested in the ride? I'd been about to knock but thought I'd be ready to go before I did." By the keys I spied in his Standard convertible's ignition, I got the suspicion there might have been no knock.

Despite sudden wariness I saw the only other car in the park to be the Whateley's black Buick. As I had learned at Supper the night before, they were going nowhere. "Yes, actually, we are. Were you going to take breakfast, Mr. Ryan?"

"I am afraid I was not." He replied without looking, walking to the door of the dusty black vehicle and throwing his hat upon the red upholstery of its front seat. He turned, lending his hand to the canvas rooftop. "I do have an early appointment. Perhaps with our apologies we might decline Mrs. Swezey's hospitality, or better yet retain some comestibles for the road."

Still trying to gauge what his edgy manner was about, I decided whatever it was should be none of my business. We were lucky to have transport. "Well, beggars can't be choosers...I'll inform our hostess and fetch Eliza...uh, Evelyn."

#

"It's perhaps ten miles to the town..." Ryan said as we bumped and jostled down the road. Behind me Elizabeth was crunching into a crisp red apple in the back seat and entertaining the possibility of a white napkin wrapped biscuit. With it so much cooler than the day before, a product I supposed of the morning as well as the trees that hung over the road north like a tunnel, my jacket had been in order. With Elizabeth in the previous evening's outfit, that jacket was on her and I'd grown chill. Despite our banter she'd been unusually quiet in her makeshift morning meal, even retiring. "At least as the crow flies." We hit a terrific rut, and even though Ryan wasn't driving more than fifteen miles an hour it threw us all rather hard. Elizabeth yelped.

I turned to find jam and biscuit all over my girl's face and it impossible to suppress a sniggering snort. She glared at me and wrinkled her nose, wiping the strawberry preserves away with a cloth napkin and the crumbles from her lap. For a moment she looked something other than embarrassed, and I mouthed 'are you okay?' She fretted and bit her lower lip. I knew my answer. Whatever was eating her was not the biscuit.

Not wishing to seem untoward, I looked back out in front and to our driver. "So, I can't help but notice, Mr. Ryan, is that a bit of an accent on you? It sounds vaguely..."

"Russian." Ryan smiled. "After a fashion."

"I...didn't mean to intrude." I said over the engine banging and crunching of dirt. "I was just curious. I suppose that explains your interest in the European matter."

"Oh, I take no offense, Mr. Montgomery. In fact I hold it as a badge of honor. We came over going on twenty years ago through Ellis Island...with me as but a young boy. At the time I thought it a hardship, that journey, but looking back on the matter I can only see it for the blessing it was. It was the last days of the revolt against the Czar, you see. Before the Rule of Horror."

"Rule of Horror?" I heard from behind, realizing my girl had finally spoken.

"How those outside of Russia have come to refer to the Bolsheviks. You know...the Communists. The 'Reds.'" Ryan glanced briefly back over his shoulder, careful to return his eyes to the treacherous highway. "Have you ever heard of the tale of Procrustes, my Dear?"

"I've read Greek myth." She answered, not meeting his gaze fully. "And I seem to remember the name, though the precise tale eludes me."

"Then you would understand my analogy, for he was a son of Poseidon, a demigod who lorded over Mount Korydallos on the sacred way between Athens and Eleusis. And you might also remember he had a bed in which he invited every passerby to spend the night. Once so enthralled the god would set to work on them with his smith's hammer, to stretch them to fit. If the guest proved too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length...and nobody ever fit the bed exactly.

Such now is the way of things in the Russias under the Bolsheviks, their so called 'Union of Congresses.' Those who were bright and successful in business, the Bourgeoisie, have been branded thieves, their wealth confiscated and redistributed to the 'masses.' Which, in reality, means the Party and Stalin. The Czar, his family and retainers, have been slaughtered or coopted. Those incapable of self-sufficiency were given the spoils of those that were. And anyone of the common folk who rejected this manner of thought have systematically been killed or enslaved, sent to the gulags of Siberia. There is only one acceptable understanding of reality, and understanding is the political thought of the Party. But, as they say, everyone is measured equally...those that excel in particular. Either they serve the purposes of the Bolsheviks or they are cut to fit. And by that, I mean most permanently."

"And how...how is it that your family had the foresight to escape?" Elizabeth asked, though with reticence. Perhaps the visions he was peddling were too close to home.

Ryan tapped his brakes and slowed, navigating another rut with greater skill than before. "My father, rest his soul, saw in that foment before the Czar's overthrow the dangers to come, for he had been acquainted with many of those the men who later became these Bolsheviks. Perhaps mine have always been bell weathers of hard times, though. We are the first to be blamed."

"Bell weathers? The first to be blamed? She questioned. "What do you mean by 'your people'?"

"Jews, Miss Montgomery. My family is of the old faith, though I find it personally hard to place my hopes in a God who seems to have abandoned us. I hope you take no offense, but before the dark times, times had always been bleak for us...or so my father and mother have told me. When the Czar's men came for my father's comrades in Minsk, we were already years settled here in the bosom of New York. Yet the lesson was not lost on us, I assure you...we learned it from afar as well as these new lessons. Though my son is young, I shall never allow him to forget them either."

Within a few minutes we came up a shallowing rise and ground to a halt with a squeal of handbrakes. A crossroads lay before us, at the right side of the road a weathered but prominent gray wooden plank announced the sleepy hamlet of 'Middle Island' in black letters. Caddy corner to that sign and across the dusty yellow crossing, a series of whitewashed row houses ran west, the largest of which sported a shady porch beneath a pair of young oaks. Over it the name "Howard Pfeiffer" was raised on a board, while on the façade of the house attached to it the words 'Flour Feed and Grain' were painted. A horse and buggy sat outside in the company of two older black, dust-covered Model Ts.

Dallying for a passing horse drawn cart and driver who regarded our clattering contraption dubiously, Ryan put on the gas and we headed north. A few buildings and houses passed. Soon the woods were about us again as we pressed up a shallow grade.

Save for the matter of Daisy Fitzroy, Elizabeth's thoughts for the last weeks had been unbridled, yet for the remainder of the drive she remained conspicuously absent from my conversation with Ryan, which touched on family then his business and dealings with this Tesla. Upon coming to a "T" intersection along a poorly attended east west road ten minutes later, we turned right and commenced the final miles of our journey.

It was close to the sea here, for in the warming morning air I could see the occasional gull and scent the tang of salt. As we rounded a slight bend in the road, across a field I saw a railroad with train pulling into a station and sighed. And then I saw of all things a lighthouse. Only it was not a lighthouse.

It was the lighthouse.

A slender, conical triangle of wood lattice, it rose unto the sky at least a train length high…perhaps more. Atop it a golden-red ball was set, facets gleaming in the morning sun. "Do you see that?" I breathed, voice barely more than a whisper. Elizabeth leaned forward in shared amazement, fingertips clasped upon the back of the seat.

"Booker..." Elizabeth whispered from behind me, the brush of her hair upon my ear. "The one from the doors..."

Only not quite. Though unmistakably the same shape as the edifice we'd seen on that surreal coastline, it was but a framework and not stone...nor were there any cliffs nor seas nearby. As the tower loomed ahead I stopped talking, gaping at as it rose into the blue morning sky before us. Had it not been for Columbia, I'd have never seen anything so spell binding.

On the road just ahead lay a small fortress of brick buildings arrayed about the spire, and across the field I could see that train's engine smoking, its cars disgorging dozens of passengers at that station I saw now quite obviously to be connected. "What is this place?" I asked Ryan, knowing I must have looked the green tourist.

"Why, I've told you..." He said as he turned left down a paved road and puttered toward a small watchman's red brick hut. Before us a navy-clad man stepped out, waiting to greet. "This is Wardenclyffe."