E. Doctorow - Loon Lake

Annotate old man who was their host as follows: F (Francis) W (Warren) Bennett born August 2 1878 Glens Falls New York. Father millionaire Augustus Bennett founder of Union Supply Company major outfitter army uniforms and military accessories hats boots Springfield rifles insignia saddles ceremonial swords etc to Army of the United States during Civil War. FW Bennett a student at Groton thence Massachusetts Institute of Technology Boston graduating with a degree in mine engineering. Bought controlling interest Missouri-Clanback Coal Company St Louis upon graduation. Took control Missouri & Western Railroad 1902. Founding partner Colorado Fuel Company with John C. Osgood Julian Kleber John L Jerome. Surviving partner associate of John D. Rockefeller Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, vice president of engineering. Immense success Colorado and Missouri speculative coal-mining ventures suggested use of capital abroad. Took over National Mexican Silver Mining Company. Founder Chilean-American Copper Company. Board of Directors James Steel Co., Northwest Lumber Trust, Baltimore, Chicago & Albuquerque RR Co., etc. Trustee Jordan College, Rhinebeck N.Y. Trustee Miss Morris’ School for Young Women, Briarcliff Manor NY. Member Knickerbocker, Acropolis, New York; Silks, Saratoga Springs; Rhode Island Keel, Newport. Marriages Fanny Teale Stevens, no issue; Bootsie van der Kellen, no issue; Lucinda Bailey, no issue. Died 1967 Lausanne Switzerland.

And this party of visitors were really romantic gangsters

thieves, extortionists and murderers of the lower class

and their women who might or might not be whores.

The old man welcomed them warmly

enjoying their responses to his camp

admiring the women in their tight dresses and red lips

relishing the having of them there so out of place

at Loon Lake.

The first morning of their visit

he led everyone down the hill

to give them rides in his biggest speedboat

a long mahogany Chris-Craft with a powerful inboard

that resonantly shook the water as she idled.

He handed them each a woolen poncho with a hood

and told them the ride was fast and cold

but still they were not prepared when under way

he opened up the throttle

and the boat reared in the water like Buck Jones’ horse.

The women shrieked and gripped the gangsters’ arms

and spray stinging like ice coated their faces

while the small flag at the stern snapped like a machine gun.

And one of the men lipping an unlit cigarette

felt it whipped away by the wind.

He turned and saw it sail over the wake

where a loon appeared from nowhere

beaked it before it hit the water

and rose back into the sky above the mountain.

Annotate boat reared in the water like Buck Jones’ horse as follows: Buck Jones a cowboy movie star silents 1920s and talkies early 1930s. Others of this specie: Tom Mix, Tim McCoy, Big Boy Williams. Buck Jones’ horse palomino stallion named Silver. Others of this specie: Pal Feller Tony.

The old man rode them around Loon Lake, its islands

through channels where beaver had built their lodges

and everything they saw the trees the mountains

the water and even the land they couldn’t see under the water

was what he owned. And then he brought them in throttling down

and the boat was awash in a rush of foam

like the outspread wings of a waterbird coming to rest.

Two other mahogany boats of different lengths

were berthed in the boathouse

and racks of canoes and guide boats upside down

and on walls paddles hanging from brackets

and fishing rods and snowshoes for some strange reason

and not a gangster there did not reflect

how this dark boathouse with its canals

and hollow-sounding deck floors

was bigger than the home his family lived in

when he was a kid, as big as the orphan’s home in fact.

But one gangster wanted to know about the lake

and its connecting lakes, the distance one could travel on them

as if he was planning a fast getaway.

Just disappearing around the corner out of sight

was the boathouse attendant.

And everyone walked up the hill for drinks and lunch.

Drinks were at twelve-thirty and lunch at one-thirty

after which, returning to their rooms,

the guests found riding outfits laid across their beds

and boots in their right sizes all new.

At three they met each other at the stables

laughing at each other and being laughed at

and the stableman fitted them out with horses

and the sensation was particularly giddy when the horses

began to move without warning ignoring them up there in the saddle

threatening to launch with each bounce like a paddle ball.

And so each day the best gangster among them realized

there would be something to do they could not do well.

The unchecked walking horses made for the woods

no one was in the lead, the old man was not there.

They were alone on these horses who took this wide trail

they seemed to know.

They were busy maintaining themselves on the tops of these horses

stepping with their plodding footfall through the soft earth

of the wide trail.

By and by proceeding gently downhill they came

to another shore of the lake, of Loon Lake,

and the trees were cut down here and the cold sun shone.

They found themselves before an airplane hangar

with a concrete ramp sloping into the water.

As the horses stood there the hangar doors slid open

there was a man pushing back each of the steel doors

although they saw only his arm and hand and shoetops.

And then from a gray cloud over the mountain

beyond the far end of the lake an airplane appeared

and made its descent in front of the mountain

growing larger as it came toward them

a green-and-white seaplane with a cowled engine and overhead wing.

It landed in the water with barely a splash

taxiing smartly with a feathery sound.

The horses nickered and stirred, everyone held on

and the lead gangster said whoa boy, whoa boy

and the goddamn plane came right out of the water

up the ramp, water falling from its pontoons

the wheels in the pontoons leaving a wet track on the concrete

and nosed up to the open hangar

blowing up a cloud of dirt and noise.

The engine was cut and the cabin door opened

and putting her hands on the wing struts a woman jumped down

a slim woman in trousers and a leather jacket and a silk scarf

and a leather helmet which she removed showing light-brown hair cut close

and she looked at them and nodded without smiling

and that was the old man’s wife.

Annotate old man’s wife as follows: Lucinda Bailey Bennett born 1896 Philadelphia PA. Father US Undersecretary of State Bangwin Channing under McKinley. Private tutoring in France and Switzerland. Miss Morris’ School for Young Women. Brearly. Long Island School of Aviation practicing stalls tailspins stalled glide half-roll snap roll slow roll rolling eight wingovers Immelmann loops. Winner First Woman’s Air Regatta Long Island New York to Palm Beach Florida 1921. Winner Single-Engine National Women’s Sprints 1922–1929. First woman to fly alone Long Island-Bermuda. Woman’s world record cross-country flight Long Island to San Diego 1932, twenty-seven hours sixteen minutes. First woman to fly alone Long Island to Newfoundland. Winner Chicago Air Meet 1931, 1932, 1933. Glenn Curtiss National Aviatrix Silver Cup 1934. Lindbergh Trophy 1935. Member President’s Commission on the Future of Aviation 1936. Honorary Member US Naval Air Patrol 1936. Lost on round-the-world flight over the Pacific 1937.

She strode off down the trail toward the big house