The Race

Hundreds of invited guests and hordes of spectators converged on Fort Worth in automobiles, buckboard wagons, carriages, and on horseback. Packed trains steamed in from Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The Northern Texas Traction Company ran extra trolleys from Dallas. A company of state militia was called up to control the crowds and protect the flying machines. Additional companies were under orders at Tyler and Texarkana. Marion Morgan’s camera operators were trampled by legions of newspaper sketch artists and photographers until Whiteway himself stepped in to remind them that, as owner of Picture World, he would not take kindly to his cameras being jostled.

The ceremony itself was delayed by every hitch imaginable.

The North Side Coliseum, which Whiteway had furnished with church pews and an altar shipped in from St. Louis, had been designed more for the movement of cattle than people, so it took a very long time to get everyone seated. Then summer thunderheads blackened the western sky, and every mechanician and birdman in the race, including the bride, ran out to the field to tie down their machines and shroud wings and fuselages with canvas.

Thunder shook the coliseum. Fierce winds swept in from the prairie. Steve Stevens’s biplane tore its anchors. The bride, though widely known to despise the obese cotton farmer, led another charge outdoors to save his machine. They got it nailed down, but not before torrential rain struck.

Josephine was dried off by her ladies-in-waiting – a rough-and-tumble crowd of Fort Worth society matrons who had volunteered to fill in for the famous aviatrix’s faraway family. The Bishop of San Francisco’s stand-in – the Right Reverend himself pleaded prior responsibilities raising funds to erect a cathedral on earthquake-ravished Nob Hill – had just reassembled the flock in front of the temporarily consecrated altar when the floor was set to shaking by a colossal jet-black 2-8-2 Mikado locomotive rumbling into the yard. With deep fireboxes, superheated boilers, and eight drive wheels, the powerful Mikados usually sped immense strings of boxcars at sixty miles per hour. This one towed a single long black private car, which it parked beside a cattle chute that led directly into the building.

“Good God,” whispered Preston Whiteway, “it’s Mother.”

From the private car, swathed head to toe in black silk and crowned with raven feathers, stalked the Widow Whiteway.

The newspaper publisher turned beseechingly to the Van Dorn Agency’s chief investigator. “I thought she was in France,” he whispered. “Bell, you’re best man. It’s your job to do something. Please.”

The tall, golden-haired detective squared his shoulders and strode to the cattle chute. Scion of an ancient Boston banking family, polished at boarding school and educated at Yale, Isaac Bell was steeped in the tradition of best men saving the day, whether by locating lost rings or defusing inebriated former fiancées, but this was as far beyond his ken, as if he were a Texas cowhand asked to rope a rhinoceros.

He offered his hand and a princely bow.

“At last,” he greeted the groom’s uninvited mother, “the ceremony can begin.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Isaac Bell, Preston’s best man and a devoted reader of your columns in the Sunday supplements.”

“If you’ve read them, you know I ca

“Neither can Josephine. Were her unfortunate marriage not properly a

Mrs. Whiteway muttered, “She’s braver than my son. Look at him, afraid of his own mother.”

“He’s mortified, madam. He thought you were in France.”

“He hoped I was in France. What do think of this girl, Mr. Bell?”

“I admire her pluck.”

Josephine approached, eyes warm, extending both hands. “I’m so glad you made it, Mrs. Whiteway. My own mother couldn’t, and I felt all alone until now.”

Mrs. Whiteway looked Josephine up and down. “Aren’t you the plain Jane?” she a

“My fiancée,” said Bell, who had already stepped out of the line of focus, “Miss Marion Morgan.”

“Well, there may be exceptions to what I said about beautiful women,” Mrs. Whiteway harrumphed. “Young lady, do you love my son?”

The aviatrix looked her in the eye. “I like him.”

“Why?”

“He gets things done.”

“That is the one good trait he inherited from my husband.” She took Josephine’s hand and said, “Let’s get on with this,” and walked her back to the altar.

Mrs. Whiteway was settled in the front pew, and the bishop’s stand-in was repeating for the third time “We are gathered here today. .” when through the skylight above Josephine and Preston the heavens suddenly glowed a steely green.

“Twisters!” cried the Texas plains dwellers who knew that weirdly tinted sky could only mean tornadoes.

Fort Worthians fled to storm cellars, inviting as many guests as they could squeeze in. Visitors who had steamed in on special trains retired to their dubious shelters. Those without cellars or trains found saloons.

The tornados roamed the rangeland until long after dark, roaring like runaway freights, hurling cattle and bunkhouses to the skies. They spared the city, but it was past midnight before a grateful congregation finally smelled the wedding feast cooking and at last heard the words “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Preston Whiteway, flushed from reciprocating multiple toasts to the bridegroom, planted a kiss on Josephine’s lips. Maid of Honor Marion Morgan assured all who asked that, from her close vantage, she had observed that Josephine returned it gamely.

A roar of “Let’s eat” drove hundreds to the tables.

Whiteway raised his glass high. “A toast to my beautiful bride, America’s Sweetheart of the Air. May she fly ever higher and faster in my arms and-”

However Whiteway intended to continue his toast was drowned out by the distinctive grinding clatter of two pump-driven, eight-cylinder Antoinette motors clawing Steve Stevens’s overburdened biplane into the night air.

JOSEPHINE JUMPED from the bridal party’s table and ran full tilt through a canvas flap that covered a cattle chute leading to the flying field. Spitting fire from both motors, Stevens’s machine cleared a fence and Mrs. Whiteway’s locomotive, headed straight at a line of telegraph wires, cleared them by inches, lurched over a barn, and disappeared into the night.

Marco Celere was standing with the chocks he had pulled from its wheels at his feet, waving good-bye with his Platov’s slide rule and his red-banded straw boater.

“I told you I’d think of something for your wedding night.”

“Where’s he going?”

“Abilene.”

“That sneaky, fat. .”

“I convinced him to go ahead so we’d have time to work on the motors.”

“How can he see where he’s flying?”

“Stars and moon on shiny tracks.”

Josephine yelled for her mechanicians to pour gas and oil into her flying machine and spin it over. Marco raced after her as she ran to it, dragging her wedding dress like a cloud of white smoke. He pulled the canvas off the monoplane’s wings while she knelt by tent pegs to release the tie-downs.

“I have to warn you. .” he whispered urgently.

“What?” She loosened a taut-line hitch, tugged the rope off the strut, and knelt to loosen another.

“If something were to happen to ‘Dmitri Platov,’ don’t worry.”

“What do you mean?. . Hurry it up! ” she shouted to her detective-mechanicians, who were tipping cans of gas and oil into the tanks. “What are you talking about? You’re Dmitri Platov.”