Twenty

Pack 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.”

“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.”