“Technically you ought to elect a chairman pro tern in order to conduct the proceedings and supervise the balloting.”

Huidekoper grinned. “Anyone want to nominate A.C. Huidekoper for that job?”

Howard Eaton shouted, “So moved!”

Someone seconded. Huidekoper said, “Chair will entertain motions …”

Johnny Goodall opened his mouth to speak. Roosevelt stared at him with such desperate gravity that the very force of his expression seemed to draw Johnny’s eyes and make Johnny hesitate. Roosevelt shook his head back and forth—beseeching. Johnny’s squint narrowed and Huidekoper thought, Do it, Johnny. You’ve got to. If you let him get away from this, he may never have the nerve to face another election.

And, he thought dryly, we’ll lose our best gladiator against De Morès.

Johnny’s chest deflated. Huidekoper realized there was a chance the courteous Texan would do what Roosevelt wanted him to do.

Huidekoper gripped Roosevelt’s arm roughly. The New Yorker’s head came around. There was an increasing impatient discord of talk in the room. Huidekoper pitched his voice to reach no farther than Roosevelt’s ears: “If anything, it’s more important to you than it is to us.”

“You need a local man,” Roosevelt said.

“It’s no good clutching at straws, Theodore.”

“Damn it, man—I came out here to be on my own. Not to run for public office. My political career has been destroyed for all time—and I’m the last one who needs reminding of that. All I want is to be left alone!”

Huidekoper said quickly, “If you don’t risk anything, Theodore, you can hardly win anything worth the winning.”

Roosevelt snorted. “I don’t want to ‘win’ this. There’s nothing to be won but drudging hard work. I’ve had enough of the thanklessness of voters. Let them find someone else to be their trammeled serf.”

Johnny Goodall said, “For a man wants to be alone, you did a fair job of running things on your part of the round-up. Mr. Roosevelt, if I didn’t believe you’re the best man for this job, I wouldn’t have said your name. Now I am aiming to nominate you again unless you tell me different right now.”

Roosevelt met Johnny’s eyes. The Texan’s slow smile was guileless; there was honest respect in it. Clearly he was being more than just polite; he was being truthful.

Roosevelt drew a long unsteady breath. He coughed, stifled it, swallowed, wiped a palm across his mustache and finally said, “I suppose I ought to be grateful to you both for reminding me that I can’t spend the rest of my life afraid I might lose a few votes.”

“All right then,” said Johnny. He lifted his head. He had a great big voice when he chose to employ it. The overtones rang—quite literally rang—against the ceiling beams. “Nominate Mr. Theodore Roosevelt for chairman of the Stockmen’s Association!”

“Second.” That was Pierce Bolan.

Huidekoper said, “Nominations are open. Who’s next?”

No one spoke.

The silence was baffling.

Huidekoper felt exasperated. “Come on. Don’t be shy.”

Howard Eaton said, “Want me to nominate you, A.C.?”

“Thank you, Howard, but my vote’s for Roosevelt. Come on, the rest of you—cat got your tongues?”

Again no one seemed to have anything to say. After a moment Pierce Bolan said, “Quit wasting time, A.C. Let’s elect the man and get on about our business.”

“Is the chair to understand there are no opposing nominations?”

“Well,” Pierce Bolan said in a very dry voice, “anybody want to nominate the Markee?”

There was a shocked moment of dead quiet and then a cloud-burst of laughter.

Someone went outdoors to find Granville Stuart. He was gone. One of the wranglers reported that the Montanan had departed in evident displeasure, announcing with some vehemence that he would spend the night in town at the De Morès Hotel.

The meeting lasted well into the night, with new Chairman Roosevelt guiding things briskly from one topic of concern to the next; now that Roosevelt had been installed by the grace of a near-unanimous majority, he seemed eager to press forward without ever looking back. Huidekoper was surprised not by the obvious pleasure but by the efficiency with which the New Yorker covered a great deal of ground in a short period of time. Nevertheless he felt a restive sense of anticlimax.

When the formal caucus adjourned, Johnny Goodall was first to say his good-nights. He went to the door and Huidekoper overheard Roosevelt say to him, “You’d make a capital politician, old fellow …”

Howard Eaton took Huidekoper aside. “I have a suspicion.”

“And?”

“Granville Stuart couldn’t wait to be off to the De Morès side of town. Don’t be plumb surprised if our royal friend gets himself unofficially appointed chief of the Dakota branch of the Granville Stuart Montana Regulators.”

Roosevelt, having heard, joined them. Huidekoper said, “The idea would seem to be true enough to De Morès’s spirit of romantic recklessness.”

“If he does it—will you join him?”

“Join De Morès?” Huidekoper was shocked.

Eaton said, “You’re the one who keeps agitating for a committee of safety.”

“De Morès is interested in no one’s safety but his own.”

Roosevelt said, “All the same, if Howard’s right, you’ll get your vigilantes.”

“Not my vigilantes. This is not the way I wished it, Theodore.”

“I’m reassured to hear that,” said Roosevelt, “for I fear if Mr. De Morès assembles a party of vigilantes, it will be not so much for the purpose of ridding us of thieves as it will be for the purpose of driving the small ranchers off the land Mr. De Morès claims for himself. And don’t be surprised, by Godfrey, if he doesn’t mind whether he drives us off alive or dead.”

Fourteen

The news Pack relayed in The Bad Lands Cow Boy was distressing because it came from nearby. Open warfare had broken out just to the north across the border in Canada: the Riel forces had risen in armed rebellion against what they said was the Ottawa government’s indifference to the Western provinces; they had set up their own unrecognized government and the army had sent troops west on the not-yet-completed Canadian Pacific Railway to do battle with the rebels at Batoche.

There was no question what would happen to Louis Riel if the Canadian army caught him. He would be hanged for treason. In the meantime half way around the globe Khartoum had fallen to the Mahdi; Chinese Gordon and his entire garrison had been massacred—just hours before the British relief column arrived. Clearly there had been a Divine error, for such catastrophes simply did not befall Her Victorian Majesty’s forces anywhere in the Empire. Assuredly it must mean the end of Gladstone’s prime ministry. No matter where on the globe you looked, it seemed order was capitulating to chaos.

To lighten the front page Pack printed one further item from the telegraph:

“A woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.”

—From the new poem “The Betrothed” by Rudyard Kipling.

He put the paper to bed and it was late when he left the office but the night was mild and he needed to stretch his legs. It would soon be baseball season—none too soon, he thought. The weekly games seemed to keep tempers in check and just now God knew the Bad Lands wanted calming.

Against his nostrils a thick current of whiskey and beer and tobacco smoke rolled out of Jerry Paddock’s place as he approached it. He heard from the forge the clang of Dan McKenzie’s hammer upon the anvil; the hour was late but McKenzie was still putting the Marquis’s second-hand stagecoaches in order for the rough mountain run to Dead wood.

Pack heard the voices of Jerry Paddock and his sometime wife, quarreling bitterly. He heard Paddock’s dangerous growl: “You listen to me!”