Brian Garfield (50 page)

“Theodore,” Huidekoper said, in a voice Joe didn't recognize at all.

“What is it, old chap?”

Huidekoper, hands shaking, withdrew a half-curled note, folded in half, from the sleeve of his greatcoat. “De Morès has written you a letter from his cell. The deputy asked me to deliver it.”

“What's in it?”

“A gentleman doesn't read another gentleman's mail. But I can guess.”

Joe Ferris thought,
So can I.

Roosevelt accepted the letter from Huidekoper. He unfolded it and read the single sheet. Then he sat heavily, head down, elbows on the table, fingers interlaced, forehead on knuckles.

Huidekoper placed his hat on a hook with the careful doleful precision of a mourner. Joe looked at Bill Sewall and saw nothing but stillness upon the woodsman's red-bearded cheeks.

Finally Roosevelt spoke. “For a long time Mr. De Morès has incubated hate. During the trial he has been kept in jail with nothing to do but brood. Now the trial approaches its climax and he does not know for certain which way it will go. I suppose it's strange that I should have more faith in his good luck than he has, but that seems to be the case. I'm sure they'll find him not guilty, by reason of insufficient evidence. Any reasonable man on the jury must concur there's doubt as to his guilt. But he doesn't seem to have much faith in our system of justice. I suppose he has worked himself into some sort of frenzy of suspicion and rage.”

He pushed himself upright in the chair and used his index finger to prod the unfolded letter across the table. “I think you all probably would like to know what it says. Please read it.”

My Dear Roosevelt,

My principle is to take the bull by the horns. Joe Ferris is very active against me and has been instrumental in getting me indicted by furnishing money to witnesses and hunting them up. The papers also publish very stupid accounts of our quarreling—I sent you the paper to N. Y. Is this done by your orders? I thought you my friend. If you are my enemy I want to know it. I am always on hand as you know, and between gentlemen it is easy to settle matters of that sort directly.

Your very truly,

Morès.

I hear the people want to organize the county. I am opposed to it for one year more at least.

Joe took his turn after Huidekoper and Sewall. When he had read the letter he understood why neither of them had said a word.

Bill Sewall was watching Roosevelt with narrowed uncertainty. Huidekoper turned to Joe Ferris in a transparent effort to avert crisis: “Were you really instrumental in getting him indicted by furnishing money to witnesses and hunting them up?”

“I thought it was you,” Joe replied. “Writing letters to Washington and all.”

Huidekoper turned. “Was it you, Theodore?”

“No. I do not write letters behind people's backs.”

Bill Sewall said, “It may have been Mrs. Reuter.” He stood facing Roosevelt. With vexation tempered by fondness, Sewall spoke softly, bringing them all back to what they were trying to evade. “The Marquis was trained at St. Cyr. They say there isn't his equal as a swordsman in any country.”

“I'm sure that's a vast exaggeration. I've seen him fence with Wibaux—I thought him only adequate. He might have killed Wibaux but that's because Wibaux is nearly as clumsy with a sword as I am. In any event I certainly wouldn't think of engaging De Morès in swordplay. Why play into his hands? As the challenged party I have the choice of weapons. My choice would be the rifle.”

“He's a dead shot,” said Huidekoper, “and he loads his ammunition with exploding bullets.”

Roosevelt said calmly, “By George, if he needs to use exploding bullets then he jolly well can't be all that much of a dead shot, can he. Recall, if you will, how much ammunition he seems to have poured wastefully into the carcasses of those poor dead horses in the road.”

Joe said, “My Remington and I are at your disposal, sir.”

“Thank you, old fellow. It won't be necessary.” Roosevelt sighed. “Really, you know, my friends, I do not approve of duelling. It's barbarism.”

Huidekoper said, “No man in his right mind would dignify this rot with a reply of any kind. Look at the postscript. Clearly he's on the verge of lunacy. First he challenges you to an affair of honor and then he gives you his advice about county government. Ample evidence, it seems to me, that he's deranged. No one will think any less of you for ignoring the fool.”

Roosevelt examined the letter again. “I'm afraid the words and their meaning are clear. The postscript may be open to interpretation but the challenge is not. In the circumstances he gives me no choice. I shall not back down and I shall not be seen to back down from Mr. De Morès.” He removed his glasses and bent his large blue eyes close to the paper as he wrote.

Huidekoper said in alarm, “What are you doing?”

“Writing back an acceptance of the challenge.”

Joe said, “And you ought to demand an apology.”

“An apology is worthless if you have to ask for it.”

“Your idealism is as demented as it is magnificent,” said Huidekoper. “It's appalling.”

Roosevelt said, “Sensible men since ancient times have realized that courage is not the only virtue but that it is the virtue without which the others are meaningless. Conversely, of course, courage alone may be insufficient. You may find it in men of evil character. Without a sense of duty and responsibility—without cool judgment and moral strength—a man counts for very little. Reputation be damned. For my own sake I cannot play the coward.”

Huidekoper muttered, “Pardon my scoffing—but one would think you were the first man ever to have discovered the Ten Commandments.”

“Your cautionary objections are noted,” Roosevelt told him, and handed his own two-page note to Sewall. Joe went around behind him to read it unabashedly over his shoulder—Roosevelt would stop him if he didn't want Joe reading it, and Roosevelt said nothing so Joe squinted and tried to read in the poor light but by then Sewall had put the first page behind the second and Joe only was able to read the last part of the letter. It was enough:

Most emphatically I am not your enemy; if I were you would know it, for I would be an open one, and would not have asked you to my house nor gone to yours. As your final words however seem to Imply a threat it is due to myself to say that the statement is not made through any fear of possible consequences to me; I too, as you know, am always on hand, and ever ready to hold myself accountable in any way for anything I have said or done.

Yours very truly,

Theodore Roosevelt

Roosevelt gave Joe a dry look—
If you're quite finished now?
—and said, “Bill, if you'll be so kind as to act as my second, please inform Mr. De Morès's second that I have chosen Winchester rifles and that I choose to have the distance arranged at twelve paces. My eyesight is weak as you know and I don't consider myself an especially good shot—therefore I must be near enough so that I can hit. We will shoot and advance until one or the other is satisfied.”

“Maybe they'll convict him. Then you won't have to fight.”

“Yes. Well we shall see whether they convict him,” Roosevelt said with a dryness that was not typical of him. “Perhaps they will, after all.”

Joe replied, “You may have been a great politician but you're a bad liar.”

Twenty

P
ack dreamed he saw the Marquis De Morès riding toward him, galloping at the head of an army of French soldiers, all of them shooting: in the dream he saw vividly the orange muzzle-flashes. He tried to hide; there was no place. He tried to run; his feet were gripped immobile in clay. The thundering army galloped upon him, and he awoke.

Perplexed, Pack remained in his seat to scribble quick notes. The crowd was filing toward the exits.

The trial had lasted a week. After closing arguments the jury retired at 2:40
P.M.
for deliberations. They were out only ten minutes. The jammed courtroom hadn't even emptied yet. Now Pack saw the crowd reverse itself. He squeezed his elbows together to make room.

On the stage of the theater the Marquis sat bolt upright. Nearby, but ignored by the Marquis, sat Jerry Paddock, arms folded.

The judge was brooding in Roosevelt's direction. Roosevelt met his glance; there was a brief display of teeth. Then Roosevelt swung his gaze boldly toward the Marquis, but the Marquis was looking elsewhere. Roosevelt's eyes then came around in this direction and Pack felt the force of them behind the lenses of the metal-frame glasses.

He's got nerve
, Pack had to admit.

The jury filed in and sat down; the foreman presented a folded piece of paper to the clerk. The room was quite still. “All rise.”

The clerk unfolded the verdict and read slowly aloud:

“We, the jury, find defendants not guilty.”

District Attorney Theodore K. Long shot to his feet and shouted, “I demand the jury be polled!”

The clerk addressed the jury. Pack watched with grim satisfaction as each man in turn answered that he had voted “Not guilty.”

Pack joined Granville Stuart and a weighty group of substantial citizens in vociferously applauding the verdict.

Finnegan's hooligans booed and hissed.

Ted Long yelled, “This courtroom is a den of iniquity! I am of a mind to give this judge Sir William the Second a good cowhiding!” And stalked from the court, near apoplexy.

The judge, busy pounding his gavel, may not have heard the prosecutorial fulminations. When the racket eventually subsided the judge said, “Prisoners are discharged on finding of Not Guilty. Court is adjourned.”

The Marquis bowed graciously to the judge, then turned on both heels and stared into the audience.

Roosevelt was there, in his seat, unmoving as the crowd milled about him. Pack saw him meet the Marquis's gaze with a bleak stare of his own.

Joe reached for the notepad that lay open on Pack's desk. Without asking permission Joe sat down, picked it up and read aloud:

“The Marquis has always had the sympathies of the better class of people. He is to be congratulated on the result and every true friend of the West will rejoice in his acquittal. There is no man in Dakota who has done more to develop the West than he, and a conviction in this case would have been a calamity.”

Joe said, “You're a worse stuffed shirt than Roosevelt, d'you know that? You're a snob.”

Pack stood at the window. Cold air blasted in at him but he had the window open so he could look out at the celebration along Rosser Street. There was a fair chance that some of tonight's quarrels might lead to murders, he feared; the Irish and their friends were not good losers.

When Joe finished reading the paragraph aloud, Pack said irritably, “You might have asked.”

“You're going to print it in the newspaper right out in front of God and everybody, aren't you?”

“All the same.”

“Don't be sour now. You've won, haven't you?”

“It's not my victory, Joe. It's a victory for justice. Even your friend Roosevelt agrees with that. There was no real evidence against the Marquis.”

“So now the Markee's free to go back and destroy what's left of the Bad Lands,” Joe said in a sour voice, “just as soon as he comes back from his urgent business in the East and gets done shooting Theodore Roosevelt to pieces. Bill Sewall went looking for De Morès and Van Driesche after the trial and it turns out they'd left town on the New York train. Did you know that?”

“Business before pleasure.”

“Or may be the Markee isn't exactly the brave hero you think he is.”

“You may accuse him of a lot of things but cowardice is hardly one of them. He's fought duels to the death.”

“With men who were unquestionably his inferiors in training and strength.”

“Like the grizzly bear he rassled?”

Joe said, “That's a lie about the grizzly. I thought you knew that.”

“It's not a lie.”

“The taxidermist is in Mandan. Go there. Ask him. The Markee stabbed his knife into a hole that was already there. He'd shot the bear from a safe distance. The taxidermist kept the pieces of lead as a souvenir. Exploding bullet.”

“I don't believe that.”

“Then ask the taxidermist, God damn it!”

“He's probably an Irishman!”

Joe said, “The Markee's a bully and a coward in my view. He didn't expect Roosevelt to accept his challenge. So he's run off east to think it over. He'll come back because he's got to put a good face on things. If Roosevelt hasn't left the country by then the Markee'll go through with the duel because he knows he's better at those things by a mile. But he'll be a little nervous because he didn't expect Roosevelt to show this kind of courage. Roosevelt will show him a few more surprises too. He's always tougher than anybody expects him to be. But listen, Pack—be that as it may, I don't want to see him killed. I don't think you do either.”

Pack retrieved his notebook, snapped it shut and slapped it down on the desk.

With the toe of his boot Joe hooked a rung of the chair beside him and slid it out toward Pack. “Sit yourself.”

Pack felt obstinate. He stood fast. “Why?”

“Because I've got to make up my mind whether I'm willing to be your friend any more.”

“That's up to you.”

“And because you're at the point where you have to choose between pursuing your own life and being a satellite.”

“You're wrong. I'm my own man.” He wouldn't have thought Joe's lexicon would have included such a word as “satellite.” Joe was a man of constant surprises.

“Your trouble, Pack, you doubt the wrong people and you seem to know everyone's business but your own. For God's sake it is time for you to see the light and realize that the true hero of the Bad Lands is not that strutting bastard De Morès at all.”