Brian Garfield (51 page)

“All right, Joe, I know you don't like his walk or his talk. It's not your style. He's got no skill at blending. It's not in him to go unnoticed. He can't ape the mannerisms of pedestrian men. That's because he dreams mighty dreams. He bestrides this land like a Colossus. He inspires—”

“He inspires nobody but you, Pack. Hell, De Morès's real followers—loyal supporters—are just about nonexistent. There's his wife who adores him with blind faith and there's Johnny Goodall, who rides his own trail, and there's you. Other than that there's only opportunists like Jerry Paddock and Dan McKenzie.”

“Not to mention a few no-accounts like Granville Stuart and—”

“The rich folks from Bismarck and from over in Montana? They side with him, sure. Why not? They fawn on the titled son of a bitch. They'd admire to be just like him—filthy rich and frivolous. They live off to one side, they don't live
under
him where you find out for sure what it really means when De Morès says he believes in the divine right of kings. He makes no secret he means to become a king himself. He believes his blue blood gives him the right to make laws in our Territory—well this isn't France. I don't care about Granville Stuart, Pack. Granville Stuart lives in Montana—it's no skin off him what happens in the Bad Lands. Where I live, nobody except you trusts the Marquis. Some take his pay and keep quiet, but they all know his promises are about as durable as snow on a hot griddle.”

Pack said in a low voice, “He has never broken his word to me.”

“May be the occasion didn't come up. Good Jesus, the Stranglers have killed more than sixty men. Sixty men, Pack.”

“No one's laid that at the Marquis's doorstep. God knows you've tried, but there's no shred of evidence. He has told me, confidentially, that he doesn't know any of the Stranglers by name or by sight.”

“He doesn't need to know their names to be their paymaster. He's the boss, Pack. Without him there'd be no Stranglers.”

Pack walked back and forth with his hands rammed deep in his pockets. Head down, not looking at his friend, he said, “Huidekoper and the others saw what a man of imagination and vision could do in this wilderness, and they hate him for having shown them up. They try to blame him for everything that happens. Sour grapes.”

“He's a foul-tempered childish fool. He killed Luffsey—I don't care what the trial says—and he'll murder Theodore Roosevelt however he can. If this duel takes place it'll mean Roosevelt's life. He's toughened up and he's got grit enough for ten, I guess, but be that as it may, I've spent plenty days hunting with the man and I can testify, you put a rifle in Roosevelt's hands and two times out of three he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from inside the barn.”

An enormous weariness dragged Pack down into the chair. His eyelids drooped. “The death of Theodore Roosevelt might not be a significant loss to the world, Joe. The death of the Marquis De Morès, on the other hand—”

“That's an unforgivable thing to say. God help you.”

Pack blinked. He felt listless.

Joe said, “He won't ever be king of France, I agree. But he's a better man by a country mile than the Markee. Remember how he handled the Lunatic? He cared, even about that poor useless creature. He has got no vindictiveness. None.”

When Pack made no reply, Joe murmured, “What's eating at you?”

“Now, I am a newspaperman. My duty is to be objective—to see the truth as it is, and not as you would have it be.”

Joe went to the door. “Hell, Pack, you wouldn't know the truth if it shot you between the eyes.” He went out. The door closed not with an angry slam but with a quiet reproachful click.

Twenty-one

W
il Dow was happy Mr. Roosevelt and Uncle Bill had come home safely; at last he could dismiss the useless hired man and get some sleep instead of leaping awake at odd intervals to keen the night for creeping Stranglers.

So he welcomed them home with unfeigned enthusiasm. But coming home did not brighten Uncle Bill Sewall's outlook. He put a bleak half-lidded stare upon the tortured waste of ice-rimmed thorns and vulture-picked bones and pronounced it harrowing and merciless.

“Uncle, doesn't it give you a lift to come home?”

“Home? This ain't my home. Anyhow we have got bigger things to worry on. They turned the Marquis loose—and now he aims to kill the boss.”

Then Sewall told Wil of the impending duel between Mr. Roosevelt and the Marquis De Morès. The Marquis was in the East attending to urgent business matters that were overdue but he would be back in Medora by the arrival of the new year and would place himself at Mr. Roosevelt's disposal upon the road below the railroad bridge on the fifteenth of January at 3
P.M.

“He chose that hour for a reason. You watch,” said Uncle Bill to Roosevelt. “He'll be west of you, facing east, and you'll have the sun in your eyes.”

“Perhaps it will be a cloudy day,” said Mr. Roosevelt without heat.

Wil said, “I'd be proud to go in your place, sir.”

“Thank you, Wil. It won't be necessary. Now please tell me—are the Stranglers still about?”

“I'm not pleased to report it but they are.” Four days ago, Wil told them, four travelers had found a lifeless body swinging from the limb of a cottonwood not six miles from the Elkhorn house, and nearby—probably not dropped accidentally—they had found a torn scrap of paper bearing the names of eighteen or twenty men. They had come by: strangers who claimed they were not Stranglers, and while Wil held his cocked three-barrel gun ready they had shown him the list and he had found fifteen of the names legible. In the past several days since word got out that the list had been found, at least a dozen men seemed to have scattered and disappeared in a great hurry.

Mr. Roosevelt inquired, “Was any of our names on the list?”

“No sir. I believe I would have mentioned that.”

“That's the first good news I have heard in a month,” growled Uncle Bill.

“Dutch Reuter's name was on the list. So were Finnegan and O'Donnell.”

Uncle Bill said, “Then the Stranglers are out to avenge the honor of De Morès. Any idea where Dutch went?”

“Haven't see him,” Wil said. “Haven't heard a thing.”

“God help him. It was a brave thing he did, testifying in court.”

Mr. Roosevelt said, “It was his duty.”

Wil coaxed higher flames from the fireplace logs and went to peer through the frost-grimed windowpane. A dozen scrawny cattle stood huddled against the windbreak of the cotton woods, pawing and gnawing at the earth. A steer lurched into the yard, lame on swollen frozen feet. Several bulls had lain down to die. There was nothing to be done about it.

They hadn't been to town for mail or supplies in more than two weeks. One morning the thermometer showed 25 degrees below zero. It was the coldest winter Wil Dow had experienced. After tossing feed to the stock in the barns he hurried inside, beating his gloved numbed hands together, in time to hear Sewall say, “Not likely any of us be suffering from the heat for a while.”

There were two deer hanging from the piazza roof. It was Uncle Bill's idea to keep two or three carcasses ahead, so as to be provisioned for blizzards. As it turned out, not much hunting was required, as the deer had come down off the slopes into the shelter of the bottomland trees—it was a simple matter for two men to beat the bushes while the third waited for the animals to come out.

In the evening a current of frigid air rolled down the coulees. Treetops were tossing in the wind. Sewall said, “A real snorter tonight.” Breath steamed from his mouth. He hung his saddle on its rail in the barn and batted his gloved hands together and glared at Wil Dow. “Look at me—a cow puncher! What's dignified in that? I am about ready to go home. I always said I should never live here longer than I was obliged. Right from the start I saw a good many drawbacks to this country. Just as soon as I get enough money you will see me go back to Island Falls, the quicker the better.”

“Well, Uncle Bill, it costs like fury to get a train ticket.”

They walked up to the house. Wil bent to peer at the Fahrenheit thermometer on the piazza. It was 32 degrees below zero.

Mr. Roosevelt came up from the stable. He tore the gold-rimmed spectacles from his face. They brought bits of skin with them. Bundled in skins you could get along all right with your back to the wind but there was no comfort if you had to face it. Still, the boss seemed to delight in the hardships and dangers and even the pain of it.

The water bucket was frozen solid, top to bottom. A hard wind shook the house and howled through the bare trees. Roosevelt was suffering from asthma and cholera morbus, and writing in his biography of Thomas Hart Benton.

Wil said, “At least it can't get any worse. It can only get easier after this.”

“I wouldn't count on that,” said Uncle Bill.

He was right. It became the most ferocious winter in Dakota history. In the snow-clad iron desolation the white river stood solid and motionless as granite. A rubble of shattered icebergs heaped itself nearly to the piazza of the house. They endured blizzard upon blizzard. Footing became ever more treacherous. The coulees filled almost level. The snow melted, froze, melted and froze again, higher and higher until the slick hard drifts were impassable.

Cattle weren't able to get through to the grass beneath; and in any case there was precious little grass at all, after the preceding season's overgrazing and fires. Even now there was a growing number of dead cattle to be found everywhere. It was certain there would be heavy losses. When spring came they'd find out the extent.

In the meantime it was necessary to tie a rope to the corner of the house and to wade blindly, bucking the drifts, to find the barn; once this was done Wil tied the riata to the barn and they had a lifeline between the buildings. But there were three consecutive days when they couldn't use it, for the temperature dropped to 60 degrees below zero.

“Everything comes to an end,” said Mr. Roosevelt with satisfaction. He stood on the piazza in shirtsleeves. There were chunks of ice on the river; the chinook was blowing and there must have been a very warm thaw upstream to the south, for a flood kept pressing upon the high dams of thick ice until they burst. These explosions heaped great crags of ice in piles along the river; there was a tremendous crashing and roaring.

It couldn't help remind Wil of the advancing date for the duel. He couldn't fathom the way Roosevelt seemed to regard it. He was neither in a dither nor in a blithe pretense; he neither worried it nor ignored it. He spoke of De Morès without particular rancor and he mentioned the duel occasionally and lightly, as if it were nothing more than another occasion in his calendar—a dinner to attend, a speech to deliver.

The threat of it may not have bothered the boss but it hung over Bill Sewall like a huge black cloud and there were whole days when it dampened Wil's spirits as well; he couldn't get the spectral anticipation out of his mind.

One morning Wil exploded. “Doesn't it ever get you down?”

“You can't allow those things to get you down, old fellow. When the time comes, I shall confront Mr. De Morès, and hope I can talk him out of this foolishness. That failing, I suppose I shall have to shoot him, or be shot by him. I shall endeavor to wound him as lightly as possible, and still dissuade him from continuing. What more can I do? In the meantime it's no use brooding, is it. Now you may have forgotten, but I have not, the four deer that we shot weeks ago and hung from a tree to keep the coyotes from them. With this thaw we shall have to rescue that meat right now or it will spoil. Are you with me?”

“Best we all go together,” said Uncle Bill. “And keep both eyes open for Stranglers. They could easy have it in mind to save the Marquis some trouble. He wouldn't have too rough a time duelling with you after you got hung.”

The three men used their Mackinaw skiff to get across; Wil bent his back to the oars. It was harrowing to go into the rough current just ahead of the ice dam but they kept dry and pulled the boat high up the bank and walked inland on Indian-style snowshoes.

They set out on foot, traveled two hours, arrived at the tree and found a few bones, nothing more.

Mr. Roosevelt examined the tracks. “Mountain lion,” he judged. “Not long ago. Bully! Let's go after it.”

They spent the rest of the day hunting lion, with no success, and returned in a rising gale to make their perilous way back across the river. They took the boat out of the water and hitched it securely to a tree high on the bank before they hurried inside.

Mr. Roosevelt was determined that in the morning they should continue the cougar hunt. Uncle Bill was not cheered by the prospect.

In the morning the boat was gone.

Wil said in a hushed voice, “Indians!”

Uncle Bill had a look at the rope. It had been cut. “You may be right. But I didn't know they used any kind of boat except canoes.”

Then Wil espied a dark object on the bank below. He scrambled for it and picked it up. A man's glove. “Look here!”

Mr. Roosevelt said, “I don't recognize it. Do you, Bill?”

“No. But I expect it's a white man's glove. Indians don't use them, do they?”

Mr. Roosevelt made fists. “Scoundrels!”

“Scoundrels with nerve,” Uncle Bill observed, “to go out into those ice packs in an open boat.”

“By Godfrey, let's saddle up, Bill. We can overtake them.”

“Think again. Half the ground's frozen stiff and the other half overflowed. Anyway all they need to do's keep on the opposite side of the river. We try to reach them, they can pick us off. The river's so high it'll probably kill them anyway. Howard Eaton told me only two parties ever tried to go down this stream in boats, and they neither of them ever made it. One boat got swamped in the rapids and the other party was on a portage, got killed by a grizzly.”