Brian Garfield (9 page)

“Last year that would have been.”

“How'd you know that?”

Huidekoper could see Roosevelt by the window, conversing with Howard Eaton. Roosevelt's voice sputtered out its notes as if from a half-obstructed trumpet—a shrill strained determined squeak, the words struggling to get out and tumbling over one another in bursts.

Huidekoper returned his attention to his companion when Joe Ferris said in a dry way, “I am trying to picture him in love.”

“For God's sake don't tease the poor man. It's been a fearful tragedy.”

“What has?”

“Valentine's Day. It was Valentine's Day, just a few months ago. I had a good lengthy letter from my—”

“Come
on
, A.C.”

Huidekoper sighed. He loathed being rushed. It was important to lay the proper groundwork for a revelation. But he gave in to the young Canadian's impatience. “Early in the morning, or so I understand, his mother died of salmonella typhoid fever …”

“Oh. Sad thing.”

“… and later the same day—the very same Valentine's Day, in the very same house in Manhattan—poor Alice Lee—Bright's Disease—nephritis of the kidney; there's speculation she may have had it for months, but being with child masked the symptoms. In sum, you see, the young bride whom he loved with all his heart, having just given birth to a baby girl, died as well, on the same day as his mother, and in the same house.”

Joe Ferris blinked. “God in Heaven.”

“There was a double funeral. And just a day or two later your young client was back in his seat in the Albany legislature. I had a letter speculating that he tried to lose himself in a flood of hard work—he refused to accept any sympathy, he declined to show any interest in his new baby daughter, and some of his closest colleagues seriously suspected he was losing his reason. And then, you see, his political career was dashed as well, and now he's decided to come west and here he is before you.”

Joe Ferris cleared his throat with noisy effort and dragged a palm across his face. “God in Heaven,” he said again. “No wonder he's low.”

He seemed near tears—a surprising thing, for Joe had a phlegmatic countenance and was no more given to displays of open emotion than was any other Bad Lander.

Seeking to distract his companion from his gloom, Huidekoper looked around the room and took notice of one trifle. When people went to the outhouse they took pains to conceal their destination. What gave away Gregor Lang's intent was his carrying a copy of the
Police Gazette
outdoors into the night. Even that was too blatant for Deacon W. P. Osterhaut, who turned and glared until the door closed softly behind Lang. Huidekoper directed a half-stifled smile toward Joe Ferris and said out of the side of his mouth, “Seems the Deacon forever quests after causes for outrage.”

Joe Ferris said gravely, “From the look on his face may be he never got the stink of that polecat out of his nose.”

Huidekoper changed the subject carefully: “Are you taking Roosevelt out again? I thought you'd given up guiding hunters.”

“I thought I had too. Be that as it may, he wrote to me by name.”

Huidekoper saw his glance slide toward Roosevelt, who still was engrossed in conversation with their host.

Huidekoper, who thought himself a judge of character, estimated that Joe Ferris was feeling shamed because he had been cultivating Roosevelt in the hope of prompting a grubstake that could move him indoors. Everybody knew about Joe's zeal to put four walls around him. Joe hated the killing: he was sentimental about animals.

Couldn't blame the man for that. The music of the animals was, in the main, sweeter than that of men.

Huidekoper kept his voice neutral. “He have anything to say on the ride out here?”

“About what?”

“Your run-up against Redhead Finnegan?”

“He didn't have much to say at all,” Joe Ferris replied. “Which I understand now.”

Huidekoper tried to sound casual. “He didn't happen to offer any sentiments on the subject of the Marquis de Morès?”

Joe Ferris squinted at him. “I don't think he likes the Marquis much.”

“I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to hear that.”

“Not my concern, is it.” But Joe gave him the beginning of a smile.

Huidekoper knew how Joe had stood up against that faction on more than one occasion—against Jerry Paddock especially; even in the old Cantonment days Joe Ferris never had had any use for Paddock; and when Paddock had joined forces with the Marquis, Joe became one of the few who did not cowtow to either of them.

Huidekoper liked Joe Ferris. Was it time to take him into his confidence?

Not for the moment; not just yet.

Somewhere in the room there barked the complaint of a hard bitter voice, a voice that would cut glass: Deacon Osterhaut's. It was not unusually loud; but Huidekoper with his especial sensitivity to sounds was cursed with an inability to disregard the unpleasant ones.

Roosevelt came forward. Joe Ferris lifted his glass inquiringly. The New Yorker declined the offer with a vast display of teeth.

“At Harvard, old fellow,” Roosevelt chattered, “they initiated me into the Porcellian on the occasion of my twentieth birthday, and I was persuaded to celebrate the event with the ingestion of a voluminous excess of wine. The next day I learned the full dread meaning of that horrendous term ‘hangover.' It was enough to persuade me never to drink again.”

“I've learned the same lesson myself,” Huidekoper observed. “Several hundred times.”

Roosevelt laughed—appreciatively; politely; but it was a sham. Last year's gusto was missing.

Little wonder, Huidekoper thought, considering what the poor fellow had been through. Still—it was important to get in past the grief and impress upon him the urgency of the situation.

He tried to move closer but Roosevelt eeled away through the swirling crowd. It was clear Roosevelt was deliberately evading him. “Hallo there, old fellow—delighted to see you!” Huidekoper couldn't see who it was. Wadsworth perhaps, or Truscott or Gregor Lang if he'd returned from the privy—one of the handful who'd been here last fall.
Damn
, Huidekoper thought.
So stupid to talk to him of his loss. It must be the last thing he wants reminding of.

Preceded by the sound of his wheezing cough, Roosevelt came back into view to shout past several people at Howard Eaton: “I see no diminution in the remarkable hospitality of your ranch. Has this room ever been empty?”

“I recall a day or two in the dead of winter,” allowed Howard Eaton, with a wide smile beneath his heavy drooping mustache.

Eaton was a pioneer: he had settled in the Bad Lands in 1881—three years ago. Now Eaton was superintendent of the Custer Trail Cattle Company and the Badger Cattle Company, with the tacit financial backing of one A.C. Huidekoper, who at the moment was asking himself,
Do I need Howard's help to bring Roosevelt into this?
He hoped not; it would require persuading not only Roosevelt but Howard Eaton as well, for Howard was not yet in agreement with Huidekoper about the extent of the impending danger.

Abruptly Johnny Goodall appeared at Huidekoper's shoulder. The Texan said, “Little dude sounds like a foreigner. English?”

“No,” said Huidekoper, “that's New York Silk Stocking.”

They watched Roosevelt accept a glass of lemonade from Mrs. Eaton, who said, “Is this another short visit or is there truth in the rumors that you intend to stay out here?”

“I bought a share in a herd last fall,” Roosevelt said.

It was something Huidekoper already knew—something, indeed, he was counting on.

Roosevelt was talking to Mrs. Eaton—measuring his words, Huidekoper thought, in a way that was unlike the Roosevelt he'd met last year: “We've had a good increase. I may make ranching my regular business. Haven't made up my mind yet, don't you know. I am out here because I cannot get up any enthusiasm for the Republican candidate, and punching cattle is one good way to avoid campaigning, but …” and his voice dropped so that Huidekoper scarcely heard it, “in truth, dear lady, I haven't much to go back to. I may stay—I like this country.”

Huidekoper was reminded just then of an afternoon several years ago in the coal hills of Pennsylvania: youths on wagons bounding furiously across the bright green meadow in a Mardi Gras buckboard race. Huidekoper had been in the crowd, shouting with the rest of them, urging his friend on. There had been great laughter and exultation and then a sudden pall when one of the wagons had flipped at full gallop and slammed its driver hard against the ground. What Huidekoper recalled now was the way the laughter had been cut in two as if by the blade of a falling axe; and the way none of them had quite been the same ever after, once they learned the seventeen-year-old driver had been crushed to death in the accident before their eyes.

Roosevelt was like that now—not merely subdued but a different young man altogether from the exuberant chatterer of last summer.

He's got to be handled with caution, Huidekoper thought, or he'll holt like a fawn.

Johnny Goodall was gazing over the others' heads at Roosevelt with a hard challenge in his stare; then he turned his back and said in a mild drawl to Huidekoper, “Appears to me this beef bonanza belongs to dudes who invest from back East and never get to know the business from the back of a cow horse. I expect they stand to lose their millions.”

“That particular dude may take you by surprise,” said Huidekoper.

“We'll see—we'll see.” Johnny, after all, was in a short temper tonight.

Huidekoper said, “A year ago you'd have numbered me among those dudes investing from back East.” Out here everyone was an immigrant. Those who had been here more than six months counted themselves natives.

Johnny Goodall said, “You're different, Mr. Huidekoper. You're a horseman.”

It took Huidekoper by surprise: it was a considerable compliment to an Easterner from a Texan.

“Hell,” Johnny Goodall said obscurely, “nothing's like it was.” And moved away.

Mystified, Huidekoper watched him go. At the door Johnny Goodall stopped and looked at every face. Then he made a deliberate pivot and strode out.

As if a hangman had departed, the noise of voices in the room climbed quickly; Huidekoper heard barks of nervous laughter and loud talk that was too hearty.

It meant things really were reaching an impossible pitch.

It wasn't Johnny Goodall, really. It was what Johnny represented. The damnable Frenchman.

We've got to bring Roosevelt into this
.

Having located his prey he waited his opportunity with the patience of a stalker; it did not arrive until after supper—near sunset when half the guests had departed; finally he seized his chance when he saw Roosevelt slip out the side door. Huidekoper followed shortly thereafter and lurked discreetly by a corner of the horse barn. Westward the clouds appeared to reflect some violent conflagration taking place just beneath the horizon. When he heard the crunch of Roosevelt's approaching boots from the direction of the outhouse he turned the corner, hands in pockets, head thrown back—a casual stroller out for a breath of fresh air. “A fine evening.”

“Very pleasant,” Roosevelt agreed.

Huidekoper said, “I wonder if I might have a word. A matter of cattle business,” he added quickly.

It slowed the New Yorker's pace and, in the end, brought him to a halt. His shoulders dropped a fraction in relief; there was gratitude, of a sort, in his face when he turned, for Huidekoper had not reopened the wound by attempting to apologize for his earlier gaffe.

“I'm at your disposal,” Roosevelt said with reluctant courtesy.

It pleased Huidekoper to approach it delicately, obliquely. “My ancestors came from Amsterdam. I suppose that gives you and me something in common. My family owns estates in Pennsylvania and New York.”

“Yes, I know that, Mr. Huidekoper.”

“You've an investment of some substance—eighty horses, isn't it, and something like four hundred fifty head of cattle under the Maltese Cross brand?”

Roosevelt eyed him with quick darting probes. “That's so. What the locals insist upon calling the Maltee Cross.”

“They reason if it's only a single cross it oughtn't to have a plural name.” Huidekoper ventured a smile.

Roosevelt said, “You've been making inquiries about my investments?”

“Only to the extent that I've made it my business to identify all the stock owners in the district, and their relative holdings. Not prying, I assure you. We're facing what, not to put too fine a point on it, one might elect to describe as difficulties. We'd be obliged to have your assistance.”

Roosevelt watched him, blinking rapidly, waiting to hear what he had to say. A year ago, Huidekoper thought, he would have jumped right into the opening with both feet. But now—Roosevelt's attention hardly seemed to have been stirred at all.

Huidekoper said, “Within reason this is good country for grazing. But it may be a mistake to listen to fools who go around boasting that if it was good enough for millions of buffalo then it must be equally well suited for beef cattle.”

“Is that so.” It was polite; not really interested. Roosevelt's eyes wandered.

Huidekoper said, “The buffalo had vast prairies to roam—tens of millions of acres. They kept moving, don't you see. The grass replenished itself behind them. You don't have the same qualities with a sedentary herd of beef cattle.”

“If you're trying to discourage me—”

“Not at all. We welcome your participation; in fact I for one am eager to have you among us, because I think you bring with you a sorely needed sense of justice along with a practical understanding of how things work. We desperately need your kind of leadership. But I think it's important you be acquainted with the realities here. Please hear me out. It's a matter of the utmost urgency.