"For some reason or other, Sam, I get the feeling you don't like your brother-in-law," Clay Herndon drawled. "Why on earth is that?"
"Why on earth is which?" Clemens asked. "Why do you get that feeling, or why don't I like the whey-faced, self-righteous, prissy, tight-fisted little horse's ass? I swear to Jesus, Clay, if brains were stream pressure, he couldn't blow his own nose."
"I'll bet he loves you, too," Herndon said, laughing.
"Doesn't everyone?" Sam said blandly, which made Herndon and all the other newspapermen in earshot laugh even louder. Sam took another sip of snarling coffee, then asked, "Has anyone got a Christmas present for me?"
"More sandpaper to keep your tongue sharp, maybe?" Herndon suggested.
"And it's coal in the stocking for the distinguished correspondent of the Morning Call," Clemens said, at which Herndon made as if to throw his cup at the editor. Sam went on, "What I'd really like is something closer to peace than this miserable cease-fire we've been enduring. Sooner or later, the CSA will get tired of it, or England will, and then some poor town on the border will catch hell-or maybe catch hell again, depending."
Edgar Leary spoke up: "If you look at things the right way, San Francisco is a town on the border."
"No, Edgar," Sam said gently. "If you look at things the wrong way, San Francisco is a town on the border. That's what worries me more than anything else: I can see some British admiral down in the Sandwich Islands making sure his fleet has enough coal to get from yon to hither, so he can leave a calling card in President Blame's-uh, Blaine's-front hall, just to remind him that England doesn't care to leave her business lying around unfinished."
"Trouble is, the calling card would be aimed at Blaine, but it would land on us," Clay Herndon said.
"That's what war is about," Clemens agreed. "The people on top are stupid-you have to be stupid, to want to be on top-so you have to kill a lot of ordinary folks before you get their notice. Till you've done that, they keep on the way they always have. Why not? They aren't the ones who are bleeding."
He finished the coffee, poured more into the cup-not quite so much this time, to leave room in case he felt like fortifying it from the whiskey bottle in his desk drawer-and carried it away to get some work done. Edgar Leary followed him. He didn't look on that as a good sign; Leary sometimes put him in mind of a puppy slobbering on his shoes-which, he thought, were damp enough already. Hoping to forestall the young reporter, he made a production out of getting one of his nasty cigars going.
Leary showed no signs of disappearing, not even when Sam (close enough to accidentally, he could say it was and sound as if he meant it) blew smoke in his face. Sighing, Clemens gave up and asked, "Well, what have you got for me today, Edgar?"
"Sir, you remember how you told me to nose around and see what I could come up with about where the rebuilding money here was going?" the youngster asked.
"Oh, yes, I remember that," Clemens agreed. It's kept you out of my hair for weeks. I'd hoped for longer, but this isn 't bad.
"I've found a few interesting things," Leary said. "May I show them to you? I hope you're not too busy."
Sam's desk was disappointingly uncluttered. If he claimed excessive work, he'd make himself a liar so blatant, even Leary could see right through him. "Yes, show me what you've got, Edgar," he said, doing his best to sound enthusiastic about whatever trivial nonsense the cub would lay before him.
Beaming, Leary hurried away. He unlocked a drawer in his desk, took from it a fat manila envelope, and hurried back to Clemens, who manfully suppressed a groan: if Leary was going to show him nonsense, why did there have to be so blasted much of it? The young reporter pulled a stack of papers about half an inch thick from the envelope. "Here you are," he said. "Why don't you start with these? They'll give you a general idea of what I've dug up. I've arranged them chronologically, so you can start at the beginning and work right through."
"Thanks," Sam said tightly. He started flipping sheets of paper. The first few were invoices: construction firms billing their patrons for amounts that didn't seem too far out of line, considering how urgent all the repairs were and how far a lot of things had to be freighted to San Francisco. Sam was about to start asking rude and pointed questions when the invoices gave way to letters. With an editor's eye, he first noted the bad grammar in the topmost one. Then he saw it was about sharing the profits on a substandard piece of construction. Once he'd spotted that, his eyes flew down to the signature. They widened.
"My God!" he breathed. "Crocker is one of Sutro's right-hand men." He shook his head. "No, that's not right. Sutro is a finger or two on Crocker's right hand." He looked up at Edgar Leary. "Where in blazes did you come up with this?"
"Which one are you talking about?" Leary looked over his shoulder. "Oh, that. That's not even a good one." He waved his hand in disparaging fashion. "Why don't you keep going a little longer?"
"I don't know. Why don't I?" Sam murmured. Keep going he did, now with interest kindled. By the time he was halfway through the stack of papers, he kept pausing every so often to stare at Leary. When he was all the way through, he let out a long, shrill whistle. "You realize what you've got here means the penitentiary for about half the city government of San Francisco?"
"Only if the other half has the best lawyers in the country," Leary answered, and patted the manila envelope. "There's still a lot in here you haven't seen, don't forget. The only thing missing"-he looked disappointed-"is anything directly tying His Honor to the graft."
"It doesn't matter," Clemens answered. "I never thought I'd say that, but it's true. It doesn't matter. The only question left about our magnificent Mayor Sutro is whether he'll poll even fewer votes in San Francisco in his next election than Blaine will in his. I wouldn't have figured such a prodigy possible, but now I see I may be wrong."
"Oh, I don't know," Leary answered. "If all the building-firm bosses and all their labourers vote for Sutro, he's liable to be re-elected."
Sam shuddered. "That's a horrible thought, Edgar." He paused to light another cigar, then pointed at Leary with it. "1 want you to write this all up for me. I think you've got a week's worth of stories here, and every one of them on the front page-hell, every one of them the lead story of the day, unless we get a peace or go back to war or Blaine drops dead or does something else useful. All under your byline, of course."
Leary's eyes glowed. "Thanks," he whispered. He might be young, but he wasn't a cub any more, or he wouldn't be after these stories ran. He'd just put his name on the map in big letters.
"You've earned it," Clemens answered. He could think of editors who would have taken Leary's work and written their own stories from it. He knew what he thought of those editors, too. "Now-before you go and write it up, where in heaven's name did you get your hands on all these papers?"
Edgar Leary's face tightened. Clemens knew what that meant. Sure enough, the youngster said, "From people who don't want their names in the newspaper. When you look at what they've passed to me, can you blame them?"
"Edgar, after this business breaks, you're going to wonder why you ever wanted your name in the newspaper." Sam held up a hand to show Leary he wasn't through. "I mean it. These stories will yank the tails of some of the richest, most important people in San Francisco. They'll come gunning for you, and that's liable not to be a figure of speech."
"If the Royal Marines couldn't get me, I don't reckon the nobs on Nob Hill are up to the job, either," Leary said.
"Ah, the blithe confidence of youth," Sam murmured. It was the same sort of confidence that made soldiers charge enemy lines, sure the bullets would miss them. Youth also had another type of confidence, though. "You're certain-absolutely certain-all your toys here are the genuine article?"
"Could anybody put together a sheaf that thick just to set us up for a fall?" Leary demanded.
"I wouldn't think so, but I was surprised the day I found out babies didn't come from the cabbage patch, too," Clemens said.
Leary blushed bright pink. He said, "Besides, I've compared the handwriting on some of these papers to ones I know are genuine, and I haven't seen a one that doesn't match."
"Now you're talking!" Sam exclaimed. "That's what I wanted to hear from you. One day a year from now, a lot of rich men's lawyers are going to call you every sort of liar in the book, and they'll stick in a few new pages and draw your face on every one of 'em. Radicals hire bomb-throwing maniacs. Rich men hire lawyers. They're more expensive, but they ought to be, because they do more damage."
"Does that make you a Socialist, then?" Leary asked, his voice sly. "Are you going to follow Abe Lincoln under the red flag?"
"Edgar, if you'll recollect, I didn't follow Abe Lincoln twenty years ago." For the first time since his brief affiliation with the Marion Rangers landed him in hot water, Sam spoke of it without self-consciousness. "I haven't seen any reason to change my mind since. Bomb-throwing maniacs aren't good for a country, for heaven's sake- they're not as bad as lawyers, that's all. And talk about damning with faint praise; it's about like saying prettier than camels or wetter than the Sahara or more interesting than my wife's brother."
Still sly, Leary asked, "And what would he say about you?"
"I haven't the foggiest notion," Clemens answered. "I always nod off before I get the chance to find out." Leary laughed. "Think I'm joking, do you?" Sam said severely. "Only shows you've never met dear Vern-or maybe just that you don't remember it. Here." He handed the papers back to the young reporter. "Get to work. Don't waste another minute. You've got a whole city government waiting to be embarrassed."
Leary went back to his own desk and began to write. Sam rose, stretched, and walked to the doorway. It was still raining, the sky gray as cement. "What a beautiful day." he said.
A church bell in the town of Fort Benton solemnly intoned the hour. A moment later, a much smaller clock in the office of Colonel Henry Welton also began to chime. Theodore Roosevelt counted with it: "… ten, eleven, twelve." He looked around the office in blurry surprise. "Midnight already. Doesn't- hie! — seem like midnight. Merry Christmas to you, Colonel."
"And a merry Christmas to you, Colonel." Henry Welton's voice wasn't so clear as it might have been, either. The bottle on the desk between the two men was nearly full. It was not, however, the bottle with which they had begun the evening. Welton poured whiskey first into his glass, then into Roosevelt 's. "And what shall we drink to now?"
Roosevelt answered without hesitation: "To the true hero of the battle by the Teton!" He drank. The whiskey hardly burned as it slid down his gullet. He'd had a lot already.
Welton drank, too. "You're kind to an old man," he said. "The reporters don't reckon you're right. The War Department doesn't reckon you're right. And you're just a damned officer of Volunteers, the nearest thing to an honorary colonel as makes no difference. So what the devil do you know? What the devil can you know?"
"I know that if you hadn't posted those Gatling guns in the front trench line, General Gordon's men probably would have overrun the position," Roosevelt answered. "I know that General Custer tried his damnedest to talk you into moving them, and you wouldn't do it. I know that Custer's taken all the credit for winning the battle, and left you not a crumb."
"No, Custer hasn't got all the credit," Welton said. "You've managed to lay your hands on a good-sized chunk yourself. And do you know what, Colonel? I don't think Brigadier General Custer likes that for hell. And do you know what else? I don't give a copper-plated damn what Brigadier General Custer likes or doesn't like." He sipped more whiskey.
"You've known him a long time," Roosevelt said, to which Welton nodded without saying anything. Roosevelt took another drink, too. As if to be fair, he said, "He is a brave man."
"I've seen very few braver," Welton agreed. "But I'll tell you something else, too: I've seen very few who love themselves more, or who work harder to make sure other people love them. There's an old saying that if you don't toot your own horn, nobody will toot it for you. Custer's got himself bigger cheeks than a chipmunk coming out of a corncrib."
Roosevelt would have found that funny had he been sober. Drunk, he laughed till the tears rolled down his own cheeks. "I'll miss you, Colonel, by God I will," he said with the deep sentiment of the whiskey bottle. "They can't hold off much longer on releasing the Unauthorized Regiment from service, and then I go back to being a rancher outside of Helena."
Welton yawned against the hour and the liquor. "Won't be the same, will it, Teddy?" He'd never before called Roosevelt that. "You're not only an old man of twenty-three now, you're a real live hero to boot."
"I'm-I'm-" Roosevelt yawned, too. Suddenly, figuring out what he was seemed like too much trouble. "I'm going to bed, Colonel."
"Good night," Welton said vaguely. By the look of things, he was going to fall asleep where he sat. Roosevelt rose and went outside. It had snowed the day before; the cold slapped Roosevelt in the face, sobering him a little. No snow now-the night was brilliantly clear.
The moon had set a couple of hours before. Jupiter and Saturn shone in the southwest; Mars was brilliant, and red as blood, high in the south.
Slowly, methodically, Roosevelt made his way out to the gate. The camp of the Unauthorized Regiment was only a few yards away. "Here's the old man back," his own sentries called, one to another. He found his tent, wrapped himself in a blanket and a buffalo robe, and either passed out or fell asleep very, very quickly.
Come morning, his head pounded like a locomotive going up a steep grade. The dazzle of sun off snow only made him hurt worse. Every one of his soldiers who spotted him greeted him with "Merry Christmas. Colonel!" — greeted him loudly and piercingly, or so he thought in his fragile state. He had to answer the men, too, which meant he had to listen to his own voice. It sounded as loud and unpleasant as anyone else's.
After a breakfast of coffee, two raw eggs, and half a tumbler of brandy begged from the regimental physician on the grounds that easing a hangover was surely a medicinal use for the stuff, he felt like a human being, although perhaps one whose parts were not perfectly interchangeable. A cigar helped steady him further. He smoked it down to a tiny butt, flipped that into the snow, lighted another, and headed into town.
The saloons were open. As far as he could tell, the saloons in Fort Benton never closed. Somebody was playing a piano, not very well, in the first one past which he walked. Several people were singing. The words had nothing to do with the holiday season. Even so, the saloon boasted a Christmas tree, with candles gaily burning on all the branches and a red glass star at the top. Why the tree didn't catch fire and burn down the saloon and half the town was beyond him, but it didn't.
Two doors down stood another saloon, also tricked out with a Christmas tree full of candles. Inside, people were singing carols in the same loud, drunken tones the folks in the first place had used for their bawdy song. Would God be happy to hear carols sung like that? Roosevelt chewed on the question as he made his way toward church.
Before he got to the white clapboard building, a man came out, spotted him, and extended a forefinger in his direction. "Colonel Roosevelt!" the fellow called. "Merry Christmas! May I speak with you for a moment?"
"And a merry Christmas to you, Zeke," Roosevelt replied. Zeke Preston wasn't the preacher. He was a reporter. Most of the men who had swarmed into Montana Territory to cover the British invasion were gone now. Of the handful still in Fort Benton, Preston was probably the best. Not only that, a lot of papers back in New York State printed what he wrote. Thus Roosevelt knew it behooved him to stay on the reporter's good side. "What can I do for you today?"
Preston came down the steps and kicked his way through the snow. "Can I trouble you with a couple of questions before you go in?" He was a lean man in his thirties who wore a walrus mustache that didn't go with his pale, narrow face; Roosevelt wondered if he was consumptive.
"Go ahead," Roosevelt said. "You've caught me fair and square."
"Good." The reporte
r reached into an overcoat pocket and drew out a notebook and pencil. "Lucky I don't have a pen," he remarked. "Weather like this, the ink'd freeze solid as Blaine 's head." He waited for Roosevelt 's chuckle, then said, "The more time passes after the battle by the Teton, the more credit General Custer takes for himself. What do you think of that?"
He'd told Colonel Henry Welton exactly what he thought of it. Welton was his friend. He knew reporters well enough to know they had their own axes to grind. "He was the overall commander, Zeke. If we'd lost, who would have ended up with the blame?"
"He says your men fought well-for Volunteers." Sure as hell, Preston was trying to goad him into saying something that would make a lively story.
"It's Christmas. I'm not going to pick a quarrel on Christmas." But Roosevelt couldn't quite leave that one alone. "I will say that the Unauthorized Regiment was the force running Gordon and his men back toward Canada when word of the cease-fire reached us and made us hold in place."
Preston scribbled, coughed, scribbled again. "What's your opinion of Gatling guns, Colonel?"
Roosevelt had been over that one with Henry Welton, too. For the reporter, he put on a toothy grin and answered, "My opinion is that I would much rather be behind them than in front of them. If you ask General Gordon, I expect you will find his opinion the same."
"I've heard some argument about how those guns should have been positioned," Preston remarked after an appreciative chuckle at Roosevelt 's comment. "Where do you stand on that?"
"They did well where they were," Roosevelt said. "I saw no point to moving them from the front line-and they were not moved, if you'll recall. General Custer was persuaded they belonged there."
How Few Remain (great war) Page 63
