Manifest Destiny

The boys had already sized up the new ground and found it wanting in just about every respect. One of them said, “Looks like his deck’s shy a joker. Likely don’t know near side from off side.”

Roosevelt ignored the insults; perhaps he didn’t understand them, or didn’t realize he was the butt. He settled a disapproving glance on the buckboard. “What’s this?”

Joe said, “Supplies for a fortnight.”

The face twisted and clenched. He had a tic or something; he kept grimacing. “And how far might it be to the hunting ground?”

“This time of year, generally find your luck around the Killdeers. Fifty miles, give or take.”

“I have not come a thousand miles to ride a wooden wagon seat, Mr. Ferris. Where’s my horse?”

“I don’t own any extra saddle horse, Mr. Roosevelt.”

Wheezing, the dude turned to the onlookers. “Might any of you gentlemen have a spare horse?”

Jerry Paddock swept off his hat and bowed with a flourish. “E.G. Paddock at your service. I happen to have a little herd in my stable.”

“Then I’ll rent one from you. And of course saddle, bridle …”

“Well hold on,” Jerry Paddock said. “We don’t know you, do we.” This morning Jerry’s gaunt face looked exceptionally evil, like an illustration of a Mongol Tatar villain in a lurid dime novel.

“My name is Theodore Roosevelt,” said the dude in his very strange Eastern accent.

“I hear you saying it.”

“I’ll be happy to pay in advance. Two weeks at, shall we say, seventy-five cents a day? Ten dollars and fifty cents, shall we make it?” He drew out his purse.

Jerry Paddock’s eyes fell upon the purse as if it were a roast suckling pig and he hadn’t eaten in a week. He said coquettishly, “We’ve had visitors ride away with our horses before. Anyways, how do I know you wouldn’t mistreat my animal? Why, we had one here just last spring, rode my best horse to death and cooked it and ate the poor thing.”

Jerry Paddock had what passed for a humorous glint in his eye. He was stringing the stranger; in a minute he’d be shooting holes in the dust around Mr. Roosevelt’s polished boots. All in fun of course—but the dude’s purse was likely to end up in Jerry’s pocket before it was over.

With a reluctant sense of responsibility toward his client Joe tried to turn trouble aside: “Mr. Roosevelt, it’s a long way to the Killdeers. You might be more comfortable on the wagon with me, sir.”

“Nonsense.” Roosevelt strutted toward the stable, talking sternly to Jerry Paddock: “Come along, my good fellow. If you won’t rent me a horse I’m sure you’ll sell me one. For cash.”

That brought an end to the trouble then and there. Jerry brought out his sorriest mare—ugly wart of a bay, an old-timer named Nell—and Mr. Roosevelt cheerfully parted with half again what the horse and rig were worth, as if it didn’t matter.

The boys trailed toward the saloon because the unexpected profit put Jerry in such a good mood he offered to stand them all a round of drinks.

The only man to refuse the offer was Roosevelt. “Thank you very much indeed, sir, but I do not partake of strong drink.”

With hoots of derision the crowd tramped inside. In two shakes Joe was alone with the puny dude in the Cantonment corral.

Roosevelt overcame a coughing fit long enough to say, “Now then, old fellow, if you wouldn’t mind showing me how to put the saddle on this animal …”

That was how the great hunt started. Its auspices were poor at best. It was with dismal foreboding that Joe made ready to put the wagon onto the trail.

Roosevelt was peering at the brick construction works across the river. “What’s all that?”

“Abattoir,” Joe said, “whatever that means.”

“Slaughterhouse. It’s French.”

“Yes sir. So’s the gentleman who’s building it. The Marquis De Morès.”

There was a glint, probably accidental, off Roosevelt’s eyeglasses. “De Morès? Is he here?”

“Not now. Back East someplace. Big financial affairs. You know him?”

“We haven’t met. I’m acquainted with his wife.”

Joe considered the great heaps of fresh brick on the flats below the bluff. “The Marquis says he’s going to build a whole town right there on the right bank. Abattoir and all. They say he’s got ten thousand cattle coming north from Texas.”

“A sizable enterprise.” There was displeasure in the dude’s piping voice. “The money comes from his father-in-law. The Marquis has no fortune of his own.”

“I wouldn’t know about such things.”

Roosevelt seemed unwilling to let it drop. “I can’t abide aristocrats. The stench of their blue blood despoils the clean air of America.”

“Wouldn’t know about that either, sir. I’m Canadian.”

“And proud of it, are you?”

Joe felt the rise of suspicion. “I am.”

Roosevelt smiled. “Good for you.” His attention returned to the brick pile. “An abattoir? Credit the man at least with large aspirations.”

Joe said, “All I know is, it takes plenty of game meat to feed his carpenters and masons, so these rough boys you see here will get plenty of work.”

“What about you, then, Mr. Ferris?”

“I used to hunt meat. For the railroad. I don’t any more.”

“Why not?”

Joe wasn’t ready to tell the exact truth. These weren’t the circumstances. He said, “One time I was shooting buffalo the barrel of my rifle got so hot it near melted my hand. Decided to let some other fellow have a turn.”

“How many buffalo did you kill?”

“That day? I don’t know. May be four hundred.”

“Great Scott! Those must have been glorious days!”

Heedless youth. Joe tasted the bile of recollection; but he knew better than to dispute the client. He kicked the brake off and the wagon rolled north.

Roosevelt came trotting cheerfully alongside on the old mare, unaware or uncaring of the fact that his Eastern-style posting up and down during the trot would be enough to get him laughed out of Dakota Territory if he didn’t leave soon of his own free will.

Taking his time, Joe Ferris was ready to decide that he didn’t like the little dude at all. Then Roosevelt unsaddled his own horse that night.

And when Joe began to unfold the canvas tent Roosevelt would have none of it: he bedded down on the earth, wrapped in the saddle blanket.

And in the morning the dude saddled up himself, not asking any questions, remembering precisely the instructions Joe had given him yesterday.

So then it was a relief to see that at least this dude meant to carry his own pack. Maybe he wasn’t the worst after all.

“What do you think, Mr. Ferris—shall we cross paths with the buffalo tomorrow?”

“Never can tell, Mr. Roosevelt.”

May be it would be best to reserve judgment a bit longer and see how the dude measured up on the trail.

Joe unhitched the wagon horse, clapped his old McClellan split-tree on it, endured the saddlesores and was moved to take pity on his guest. “Beg your pardon, sir, but they don’t post on a Western saddle.”

“That will suit me well enough,” Roosevelt replied. But he kept a poor seat after that and never seemed to learn the trick of riding loose, sticking to the saddle, swaying with the natural movement of the horse. In general he bounced.

“Where are the buffalo, Mr. Ferris?”

“Whatever’s to be found, I’ll find for you, Mr. Roosevelt.”

Ten days Joe guided his client around the familiar country of the Killdeer Mountain district. They saw no buffalo but nevertheless the expedition seemed to meet the satisfaction of the dude, who kept exclaiming with great enthusiasm over the abundance of game.

Most hunters would have thought it a bad hunt. The animals seemed to have scattered out of pure perversion. Joe Ferris rode more miles and raised more saddlesores than he ever had before. The insides of his knees were scraped raw. But Roosevelt loved it. They took pronghorn, mule deer, whitetail, an elk with a magnificent rack, a bighorn sheep.