Manifest Destiny

Huidekoper could see Roosevelt by the window, conversing with Howard Eaton. Roosevelt’s voice sputtered out its notes as if from a half-obstructed trumpet—a shrill strained determined squeak, the words struggling to get out and tumbling over one another in bursts.

Huidekoper returned his attention to his companion when Joe Ferris said in a dry way, “I am trying to picture him in love.”

“For God’s sake don’t tease the poor man. It’s been a fearful tragedy.”

“What has?”

“Valentine’s Day. It was Valentine’s Day, just a few months ago. I had a good lengthy letter from my—”

“Come on, A.C.”

Huidekoper sighed. He loathed being rushed. It was important to lay the proper groundwork for a revelation. But he gave in to the young Canadian’s impatience. “Early in the morning, or so I understand, his mother died of salmonella typhoid fever …”

“Oh. Sad thing.”

“… and later the same day—the very same Valentine’s Day, in the very same house in Manhattan—poor Alice Lee—Bright’s Disease—nephritis of the kidney; there’s speculation she may have had it for months, but being with child masked the symptoms. In sum, you see, the young bride whom he loved with all his heart, having just given birth to a baby girl, died as well, on the same day as his mother, and in the same house.”

Joe Ferris blinked. “God in Heaven.”

“There was a double funeral. And just a day or two later your young client was back in his seat in the Albany legislature. I had a letter speculating that he tried to lose himself in a flood of hard work—he refused to accept any sympathy, he declined to show any interest in his new baby daughter, and some of his closest colleagues seriously suspected he was losing his reason. And then, you see, his political career was dashed as well, and now he’s decided to come west and here he is before you.”

Joe Ferris cleared his throat with noisy effort and dragged a palm across his face. “God in Heaven,” he said again. “No wonder he’s low.”

He seemed near tears—a surprising thing, for Joe had a phlegmatic countenance and was no more given to displays of open emotion than was any other Bad Lander.

Seeking to distract his companion from his gloom, Huidekoper looked around the room and took notice of one trifle. When people went to the outhouse they took pains to conceal their destination. What gave away Gregor Lang’s intent was his carrying a copy of the Police Gazette outdoors into the night. Even that was too blatant for Deacon W. P. Osterhaut, who turned and glared until the door closed softly behind Lang. Huidekoper directed a half-stifled smile toward Joe Ferris and said out of the side of his mouth, “Seems the Deacon forever quests after causes for outrage.”

Joe Ferris said gravely, “From the look on his face may be he never got the stink of that polecat out of his nose.”

Huidekoper changed the subject carefully: “Are you taking Roosevelt out again? I thought you’d given up guiding hunters.”

“I thought I had too. Be that as it may, he wrote to me by name.”

Huidekoper saw his glance slide toward Roosevelt, who still was engrossed in conversation with their host.

Huidekoper, who thought himself a judge of character, estimated that Joe Ferris was feeling shamed because he had been cultivating Roosevelt in the hope of prompting a grubstake that could move him indoors. Everybody knew about Joe’s zeal to put four walls around him. Joe hated the killing: he was sentimental about animals.

Couldn’t blame the man for that. The music of the animals was, in the main, sweeter than that of men.

Huidekoper kept his voice neutral. “He have anything to say on the ride out here?”

“About what?”

“Your run-up against Redhead Fi

“He didn’t have much to say at all,” Joe Ferris replied. “Which I understand now.”

Huidekoper tried to sound casual. “He didn’t happen to offer any sentiments on the subject of the Marquis de Morès?”

Joe Ferris squinted at him. “I don’t think he likes the Marquis much.”

“I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to hear that.”

“Not my concern, is it.” But Joe gave him the begi

Huidekoper knew how Joe had stood up against that faction on more than one occasion—against Jerry Paddock especially; even in the old Cantonment days Joe Ferris never had had any use for Paddock; and when Paddock had joined forces with the Marquis, Joe became one of the few who did not cowtow to either of them.

Huidekoper liked Joe Ferris. Was it time to take him into his confidence?

Not for the moment; not just yet.

Somewhere in the room there barked the complaint of a hard bitter voice, a voice that would cut glass: Deacon Osterhaut’s. It was not unusually loud; but Huidekoper with his especial sensitivity to sounds was cursed with an inability to disregard the unpleasant ones.

Roosevelt came forward. Joe Ferris lifted his glass inquiringly. The New Yorker declined the offer with a vast display of teeth.

“At Harvard, old fellow,” Roosevelt chattered, “they initiated me into the Porcellian on the occasion of my twentieth birthday, and I was persuaded to celebrate the event with the ingestion of a voluminous excess of wine. The next day I learned the full dread meaning of that horrendous term ‘hangover.’ It was enough to persuade me never to drink again.”

“I’ve learned the same lesson myself,” Huidekoper observed. “Several hundred times.”

Roosevelt laughed—appreciatively; politely; but it was a sham. Last year’s gusto was missing.

Little wonder, Huidekoper thought, considering what the poor fellow had been through. Still—it was important to get in past the grief and impress upon him the urgency of the situation.

He tried to move closer but Roosevelt eeled away through the swirling crowd. It was clear Roosevelt was deliberately evading him. “Hallo there, old fellow—delighted to see you!” Huidekoper couldn’t see who it was. Wadsworth perhaps, or Truscott or Gregor Lang if he’d returned from the privy—one of the handful who’d been here last fall. Damn, Huidekoper thought. So stupid to talk to him of his loss. It must be the last thing he wants reminding of.

Preceded by the sound of his wheezing cough, Roosevelt came back into view to shout past several people at Howard Eaton: “I see no diminution in the remarkable hospitality of your ranch. Has this room ever been empty?”

“I recall a day or two in the dead of winter,” allowed Howard Eaton, with a wide smile beneath his heavy drooping mustache.

Eaton was a pioneer: he had settled in the Bad Lands in 1881—three years ago. Now Eaton was superintendent of the Custer Trail Cattle Company and the Badger Cattle Company, with the tacit financial backing of one A.C. Huidekoper, who at the moment was asking himself, Do I need Howard’s help to bring Roosevelt into this? He hoped not; it would require persuading not only Roosevelt but Howard Eaton as well, for Howard was not yet in agreement with Huidekoper about the extent of the impending danger.

Abruptly Joh

“No,” said Huidekoper, “that’s New York Silk Stocking.”

They watched Roosevelt accept a glass of lemonade from Mrs. Eaton, who said, “Is this another short visit or is there truth in the rumors that you intend to stay out here?”

“I bought a share in a herd last fall,” Roosevelt said.

It was something Huidekoper already knew—something, indeed, he was counting on.

Roosevelt was talking to Mrs. Eaton—measuring his words, Huidekoper thought, in a way that was unlike the Roosevelt he’d met last year: “We’ve had a good increase. I may make ranching my regular business. Haven’t made up my mind yet, don’t you know. I am out here because I ca