Manifest Destiny

Handling the prisoners was not as difficult as Wil had at first feared. O’Do

That evening the temperature dropped to around zero. Wil supervised while the prisoners gathered firewood. It was too cold to tie their hands; they’d have got the frost. Roosevelt took their boots away from them and put the three prisoners on the far side of the fire and told them not to come across it or they’d be shot. The prisoners rolled up in buffalo robes and did not look eager to bolt barefoot through the frozen spiny wilderness, but all the same, by Roosevelt’s decree, the three captors took turns standing night-guard.

That first night Wil watched until midnight, then Roosevelt until daybreak; next night Uncle Bill would take the first watch, then Wil; so forth. In that ma

In the morning they assembled at the roaring bank. Bill Sewall contemplated the heaving froth. “What now?”

“Downriver, old fellow. No choice.”

“Nobody knows where this river goes. Where we are right now—the map says the river’s fifteen miles from here. Nobody has done a survey. It’s guesswork. We could hit a hundred-foot waterfall around any bend.”

“Then keep your ears open, that’s a good chap.” Roosevelt’s grin was luminous.

They headed downstream in both boats. Almost immediately they ran into an enormous ice jam that held them back for hours. All they could do was follow it at its own petty pace. “Maybe we’ll get a warmer thaw,” Wil suggested.

“And maybe if my aunt had wheels she’d be a buckboard,” Uncle Bill said.

Each time they touched shore Frank O’Do

They made only two miles the first few days. It was icy bitter tedium. Roosevelt had ample opportunity to finish reading his Tolstoy. It was fortunate they had found several books amongst the prisoners’ booty; it seemed Fi

Roosevelt began to write a letter and Wil was prompted rashly to say, “Writing to your lady friend, sir?”

“My very good lady friend, yes indeed. My sweetheart from years ago, and if you’re not careful, Wil, I shall bore you to tears with exultations about her.”

“Guess you saw her when you went back East last trip?”

“You may recall I broke a bone when I was East? Miss Carow, angel of mercy that she is, helped nurse me back to health. We had an opportunity to rediscover the things we’d seen in each other in the first place. Though between you and me, I can hardly credit that she sees much in a little four-eyed dude like me.”

“What sort of lady is she, sir?”

“Very fine, very lovely—and deserving of far better than the likes of your obedient servant.”

“I don’t believe that, sir. Sounds like you are to be congratulated.”

“That would be premature, old fellow. But I do hope the time will come.” Roosevelt’s lips peeled back from the big teeth. He was in a splendid mood.

Downriver behind the slow-moving ice they had to guard the prisoners every minute; none of the three was to be trusted, and as the days passed Fi

They traveled on into the unknown and untested reaches of the river—in all no more than twenty miles as the crow flies, but more like a hundred because of the oxbow bends and double loops of the river.

And now they were out of provisions. Wil cooked up a last batch of biscuits, as muddy as the water he had to use in preparing them.

Uncle Bill said, “That’s it, then. We’ll have to kill them or let them go, since we can’t feed them.”

“No,” said Roosevelt. “We’re not suffering any worse punishment than they are.”

“It won’t serve justice much if we all die out here.”

“If it comes to that we can die just as quickly with these prisoners as without them,” Roosevelt pointed out, and Wil saw no way to refute that.

Uncle Bill said, “You are always the last one to quit.” He didn’t sound pleased to say it.

It was then that they saw cattle on the slopes above the river on the opposite bank. Wil got out his rifle, eager to shoot one, but Uncle Bill said, “It’s risky business to kill other folks’ cattle.”

“We are not thieves,” Roosevelt said.

“Then that’s that,” said Uncle Bill. There was no question of fighting Mr. Roosevelt. His will, and his swashbuckling approach to this, were such red-hot things that they simply wilted whatever resistance tried to form objections within his companions.

And so, Wil thought, we will starve to death in this blasted Wild West.

They found a wagon road, so they left the boats in the ice jam and made their way on foot—a journey the bootless prisoners did not enjoy—to a small ranch. Its house was no more than a hovel. A wagon stood off to the side and there were horses in the corral. Roosevelt said, “What place is this?”

“Don’t know,” said Uncle Bill.

Fi

The owner, an old frontiersman, came out squinting and said, “Fi

“Guess I have made a fool of myself again.”

Wil was not happy to see the friendliness with which Redhead Fi

They spent the night. Roosevelt sat up with his back against the door and his rifle across his lap. As far as Wil could tell, he must have stayed up reading and writing all night.

In the morning Roosevelt bought provisions from the old man and hired his wagon and team. “Now you two,” Roosevelt said to Wil and his uncle, “can do me the fine favor of taking the two boats downstream to the mouth of the river, where they can be recovered. I myself shall put the three captives in the wagon. This old gentleman will drive it. We’ll take them overland into town, following the plateau rather than going down into the Bad Lands.”

Uncle Bill protested vigorously. He took Roosevelt by the elbow and tried to steer him off out of the old frontiersman’s hearing but Roosevelt shook him off.

Uncle Bill said in a forceful whisper, “It’s a fifty-mile trip all alone with three killers for company, not to mention that old fellow, whose allegiance you might describe as dubious at best.”

Roosevelt said, “There are two boats, and there are two of you. I can’t see one man handling that enterprise. Can you?”