Alfred Medina was the technician who would keep the system operating. A wiry man with thick glasses and a surplus of nervous energy, he was part electrician and part telephone operator, and nervous about working for the president. He blottedthe perspiration from his bald head as he showed Nathaniel how the system worked.
“While the train is moving, we’ll be out of telegraph contact, but once we pull into a station, I can patch us into their wire and telephone systems in short order.”
Alfred gestured to the other side of the car, where a countertop bolted to the wall held four typewriters. “This is where the journalists can type up their reports. I’ll have a telegraph line open for the president at all times.” He tugged at his collar and mopped his brow again.
“Relax,” Nathaniel said. “You’ll find President McKinley an easygoing man.” He silently hoped Alfred would never need to cope with Ida McKinley, for the first lady could frighten a man like this into leaping off a moving train.
At least Caroline had consented to come on the journey. Their encounter on the roof still burned in his memory. They were becoming dangerously close, and this attraction couldn’t continue during the tour. Each day they would be in new towns and unfamiliar venues with thousands of people turning out to see the president. Nathaniel would honor his word to support her should the situation with her brother turn dark, but the rest of the time, he needed to keep her at arm’s length.
He gestured to a strange box that looked something like a telephone. “What’s this?”
“It’s the intercommunication box,” Alfred said. “If an announcement needs to be made to the other cars, that will do the trick.”
That caught Nathaniel’s attention. “Can I hear what’s going on in other cars?” If so, it could be a security lifeline, but Alfred shook his head.
“It only communicates one way, but it’s a better system than bells,” he said.
Internal bells were how the staff communicated inside the White House. This new system might be worth looking into,but that would have to wait. The train was about to depart, and somehow Nathaniel suspected that the next few months would be among the most memorable of his life.
Excitement hummed in the air as Caroline found her seat for the first evening’s dinner aboard the train. Each table was covered with fine linen and set with china, crystal, and a menu card. Tea candles adorned each table, and the shaded electric sconces on the wall had been dimmed for evening dining. Silver clinked against china as twenty-eight people gathered in the presidential dining car. Most worked for the president, but two journalists and three congressmen had been invited for the first part of the journey. The congressmen’s wives had been invited too, making for a lively gathering. Rembrandt set up his camera and took a few photographs to commemorate their first night’s journey.
It was a lovely dinner, with fresh lobster baked in a delicate wine sauce. Caroline ought to be embarrassed by her niggling sense of annoyance, but Nathaniel had been ignoring her from the moment they set off from Washington earlier that afternoon. He deliberately looked past her as people selected their seats, choosing to sit with Rembrandt and Alfred Medina, the communications officer with the nervous tic. Even though Nathaniel was avoiding her, she still sensed him stealing glances at her, but each time she tried to catch him in the act, his gaze immediately slid away.
Caroline dined with the three congressmen’s wives. Emmaline Foster’s husband was likely to become the next Speaker of the House, so the McKinleys were catering to him by inviting him to share their small table, but his wife had to sit at the ladies’ table. Mrs. Foster had a headful of tightly pinned steel-gray curls and a smile of barbed wire.
“Please stop daydreaming,” Mrs. Foster snapped at Caroline. “For the third time, I am telling you that I insist on sharing acarriage with the first couple on our visit to Monticello tomorrow, and yet you stare into space and ignore my request.”
Caroline maintained a pleasant expression even though Mrs. Foster was treating her like a peasant. “The carriage assignments are already in place,” she said. The train would pull into Charlottesville in the morning, and after a quick tour of the University of Virginia, the presidential party would ride in a string of carriages to Thomas Jefferson’s historic home. “The security team made the arrangements for seating. I don’t know if there is any leeway.”
“Then please inquire,” Mrs. Foster said. “My husband and I have only a limited time to travel with the president, and I didn’t expect to spend it foisted off on the help.”
Caroline seized the opportunity. “Let me go ask for you,” she said, leaving her seat and heading to Nathaniel’s table on the far side of the car. “Might I speak with you alone for a moment?” she said to him.
He shifted uneasily and didn’t meet her gaze. “I’m in the middle of the lobster,” he said. “It’s likely the last time we’ll be served seafood on the train.”
“I have a question about security during tomorrow’s trip to Monticello.”
He didn’t look happy, but he couldn’t shirk his duties either. He dabbed his mouth with a napkin, pushed away from the lobster feast, and gestured her toward the corridor connecting to the next car.
The communications car was empty but already a sloppy mess, and they weren’t even six hours into the journey. The journalists had left papers and reference manuals stacked up beside a jumble of wires and telegraph machines. It looked like organized chaos, but at least the car was private.
Nathaniel pulled the door shut but didn’t face her.
“How long are you going to keep ignoring me?” she asked the moment the door was secure.
His shoulders tensed, and he took a deep breath. “Caroline, let’s not do this,” he said, still not turning around.
“Are we really going to pretend that nothing happened last night? Because I can’t live beside you every day and act like we’re strangers. I can’t.”
At last he turned. “You’re the toughest woman I know. Of course you can.”
She didn’t feel tough. She’d come on this trip because Nathaniel promised she could lean on him. Every mile they traveled from Washington increased the vague sense of panic that kept her on edge. Luke’s pneumonia could take a turn for the worse and kill him within hours, and she wouldn’t even know until they pulled into their next stop.
“There was an extra space at my table tonight. You could have joined me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She stiffened. “You said that when I was nervous or afraid, you would be there for me. That you’d clear a path for me and guard my back. Mrs. Foster has been throwing darts at me for hours, and you can’t take your attention off your precious lobster.”
