Manifest Destiny

“Talk to his wife, Pack. She’s the only one with any influence over the madman.”

Pack scowled. “He’s not a madman. He’s a visionary.”

“Have it your way. Just talk to her.”

“Well it’s a thought, I admit. Not only does the Marquis listen to Madame—she’d plead Roosevelt’s case more earnestly than anyone else.”

“You’re wrong about that, you know.”

“What?”

“You think there’s something between them. Around behind the Markee’s back.”

“Now, I’ve seen them together.”

“You’ve seen one thing and thought another. I’ll tell you something, Pack. You keep thinking Roosevelt’s secretly in love with her. It’s not Roosevelt who’s weak in the upper story over her, you damn fool—it’s you.”

“I for one, certainly … I’m hardly the only one … Every man in town—”

“Every man in town, mostly, knows a lot of things about her that you don’t seem to know. Surely she can take a man’s breath—but she’s spoiled rotten. Her every whim’s attended by one of twenty servants and if you know Mr. Roosevelt at all you’ve got to see how her life must look to him—all frivolous and downright decadent. The women in his own family may be used to having a few servants around but they damn well know how to fend for themselves. This girl Medora, she’s got no independence—no life of her own at all, except what the Marquis allows her. She’s well born, well bred, well trained, but she does what she’s told. That’s not Mr. Roosevelt’s kind of woman. He’s been polite and considerate to her because I reckon he feels sorry for her, and I expect may be he admires her loyalty to the Markee, but—”

“Now, Joe, she’s not stupid! You make her sound vacuous. She’s got more talents and skills than most of the grown men in this Territory.”

“All right. Be that as it may. Roosevelt’s been writing to his lady friend in New York, hasn’t he now.”

“How would you know that?”

“I’m postmaster, ain’t I.”

“You spied on him?”

“I’m no spy, Pack. You know better. I can read an address as well as the next man, and when he keeps sending letters every chance he gets to a Miss Edith Carow who clearly isn’t his sister—”

“She could be a maiden aunt.”

“And I could be Christopher Columbus. Hell, Pack, if you’ve got to know, I asked him one day and he told me. He said, ‘That is Miss Edith Carow, the sweetheart of my childhood, and we intend to be married in London in the spring.’”

Theodore Roosevelt said, “An event to which I look forward with the most avid pleasure,” and came down the stairs.

Pack wondered with alarm how much he had heard.

Roosevelt had done his best to clean up his outfit. He had shaved and some of the bruises had gone down and he looked nearly presentable.

And he was toting his Winchester.

He jacked it empty on the counter, picked up the cartridges, counted and examined them, and reloaded the magazine carefully.

His voice had a dull flat listlessness; it was unlike him. “In the absence of Mr. Sewall, I wonder if you, Joe, would be so good as to act as my second, and convey to the Marquis the information that I am available at his convenience.”

Pack said, “If I may be so bold. Joe and I don’t think this is the best time for you to go engaging in a duel.”

Roosevelt blinked behind his eyeglasses. They were, Pack noticed, sparkling clean. Roosevelt said, “Is there such a thing as a good time for a duel?”

“Now, I believe there’s a chance this one can be averted until you’re feeling stronger.”

He waited for Roosevelt to argue with him. The New Yorker said, “By all means. What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to back away?”

“I don’t suppose I can.”

Joe Ferris said, “But if the Markee was to back away, you wouldn’t force the issue, would you?”

“Old fellow, I should be a very happy man indeed if the Marquis should choose to withdraw his challenge. I’ve no desire to kill him, nor be killed by him.”

Pack drew a deep breath and closed his eyes for an instant, and opened them. He looked Roosevelt in the eye. “Not much chance this will do any good, but will you object if I go to talk with the Marquis?”

“Why certainly not.”

“And have you strenuous objection to my speaking with Madame Medora as part of the effort to change the Marquis’s mind?”

“None whatever. For all I care you may speak with the Devil himself, if it will help restore peace and tranquillity to our town.”

The Marquis De Morès was ready to climb into the carriage. He had already handed Madame up onto the seat. Facing Pack he stood with feet braced apart and whapped the weighted bamboo stick into his open palm.

Pack said, “Roosevelt has had a gruelling adventure—”

“Yes. Arthur, don’t you find it a wonderful irony that he should be the man to arrest Dutch Reuter? Think of the trouble he could have saved himself if he’d simply let me have the old fool to begin with.”

Madame Medora said, “Antoine, you must see that Arthur’s right. It wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of his weakened condition.”

“If he says he’s prepared to meet me, then I assume he has come prepared to decide the matter.”

Madame la Marquise leaned over, reached out and touched a palm to her husband’s cheek.

Pack watched her with an altogether new fascination.

Most women were realists, he had found—much more so than men were. A thing that fascinated him about Medora was that unlike most women she was not such a realist. No matter how accomplished, she was not practical; she was a romantic.

Whatever her feelings about Roosevelt might be, she was indeed in love with the Marquis. She wasn’t blind to his arrogance and prejudices, any more than Pack was; she was able to ignore them because the great shining light of her romantic faith washed away all the shadows from her picture of him. Soft as she was, she had the will not to see things if they were unimportant by comparison with the man’s true greatness.

Pack was able to recognize those qualities in her because he shared some of them.

“Antoine—if Theodore were to be killed in the Bad Lands, by you, I’m rather afraid there might be repercussions throughout New York Society.”

She said no more than that; and Pack did not understand why her words made the Marquis stop dropping the heavy stick into his palm.

The Marquis looked away from her and met Pack’s inquiring stare. A sort of snarl curled one corner of the lip beneath the meticulously pointed mustache. The Marquis lifted his Winchester out of the carriage, jacked it half open to see the cartridge in the chamber, made a grunting sound in his throat that Pack couldn’t decipher at all, climbed up onto the seat and tapped the driver’s shoulder with the muzzle of the rifle. “Let’s go.”

Roosevelt threaded the crowd to climb onto the platform with his rifle in hand. Joe Ferris watched with a scowl. “You shouldn’t be here. If he sees you he won’t have any choice but to fight.”

“On the contrary—there is a choice, and it’s his to make.”

“Sir, begging to differ. Look at the size of the crowd watching here. In my experience it’s always better to let the other chap keep his dignity intact.”

“I shan’t impugn his dignity. I shall say nothing inflammatory to him. But I am here, and here I shall stay. You may as well give up the argument, old fellow.”

Joe opened his mouth to speak again but thought better of it; there was too much steel in Roosevelt’s eye.

They hadn’t long to wait. The eastbound train pulled in with a good deal of steamy chuffing—and the Marquis and Marquise arrived in their surrey. Arthur Packard came puffing along behind them, on foot.

The crowd made way. The Marquis stepped down. He carried his stick in one hand and a rifle in the other. He handed the stick up to Medora. The weight of it brought her arms down to the seat.

The Marquis kept his rifle in one hand, aimed at the ground. He faced Theodore Roosevelt. The crowd hung back, fascinated; no one made a sound. Joe recognized all the familiar faces—Joh