How Few Remain

Chapter 5

Jeb Stuart led his troopers north out of Sonora and into New Mexico Territory. Now that the United States and Confederate States were at war, his opinion was that the best way to keep the USA from invading the new Confederate acquisitions was to make U.S. forces defend their own land.

He'd managed to stay in touch with Richmond through a spiderweb of telegraph wires across the Sonoran and Chihuahuan desert back to Texas. He reckoned that a mixed blessing, as it deprived him of fully independent command. But he had heard not a word of reproof from the War Department on his plan to move into the United States.

"Not likely that you would, is it, sir?" Major Horatio Sellers said.

"With Stonewall Jackson heading up the Army, do you mean?" Stuart said with a grin. "You're right about that, Major, no doubt about it. Stonewall will never quarrel with a man who goes toward the enemy."

"That's what I meant, all right." Stuart's aide-de-camp checked his map. "Sir, are we going to strike Tombstone or Contention City?"

" Contention City," Stuart said at once. "That's where the stamping mills and refineries are for the ore, and that's what we want. Where the mines are doesn't matter; what comes out of them is what counts. You think we won't get a pat on the back if we bring home a few tons of refined gold and silver ore?"

"Just might," Sellers said dryly.

It wasn't might. Both men knew as much. The Confederate States were shorter than they cared to be on precious metals. The United States had far more in the way of mineral wealth, which helped keep their currency sound. The CSA relied on commerce to bring in most of their gold and silver. Well, this was commerce, too, commerce of a different and ancient sort.

A scout came galloping back to Stuart. "Sir, looks like the damn-yankees have some soldiers in that there Contention City," he reported. "Can't rightly tell how many-don't look like a whole lot, but they won't be showin' all the cards they've got, neither."

The way he spoke gave Stuart an idea. He turned to his aide-de-camp. "Major Sellers, will you be so kind as to ride into Contention City under flag of truce and ask the Yankee commander to ride back here for a parley with me? You won't get back before nightfall, I expect, but that's all right. It's better than all right, as a matter of fact. Tell him I desire to prevent any useless bloodshed on his part, and so will not fall upon him with the overwhelming force at my disposal."

"Yes, sir; I'll tell him," Major Sellers said obediently. He looked around at the cavalry riding with Stuart; they'd left the infantry behind for the dash up into the United States. "Begging your pardon, if he's got more than a couple of companies entrenched around that town, this isn't an overwhelming force."

"Not now, it isn't." Stuart's voice was light and gay. "It will be by tonight, when everyone joins us. Just you make certain you don't bring the Yankee commander back here till after full dark. Ten o'clock will be perfect."

"Yes, sir," Sellers said again, still obedient but very puzzled. He knew as well as Stuart-maybe better than Stuart-no other Confederate soldiers would or could join them, not for the next several days. He was scratching his head as he rode north after the scout.

Stuart shouted orders to his trumpeter, who blew Halt. The cavalry troopers reined in, as bemused as Major Sellers: they'd been pushing hard toward their goal, and couldn't imagine why their commander was stopping them in the middle of this godforsaken desert. Their confusion only increased when Stuart said, "We'll make camp here, boys."

He gave more orders after that. By the time he was through, the troopers, confused no more, fell to with a will. One of them said, "Any day we get to knock off early is a good day by me." As the work progressed, they discovered they hadn't knocked off early after all. They kept at it, though, fired by the same enthusiasm as had filled Stuart when the idea came to him.

He sent scouts out well in front of his force, so they could intercept Major Sellers and the U.S. commander (if he chose to come; if he didn't, a lot of work was being wasted) well before they reached the camp. Instead of pitching his own tent near the center of the encampment, as he usually did, he had it set at the northern edge, and made sure the scouts knew as much.

As the sun went down, the men lighted their fires. Sagebrush and greasewood, the staples of campfires farther north, weren't so common here, but the troopers had scoured the desert roundabout for what they could find, and had also cut down a good many of the cottonwoods and mesquite trees growing alongside the San Pedro River. At this season of the year, the San Pedro was as thin and lethargic a stream as the Rio Grande, but it kept the trees alive.

Firelight gleamed off cannons, reflected palely from tent canvas. and showed row on row of tethered horses and camels, the latter being closer to Stuart's shelter. Men lined up to get their tin plates filled from the pots hanging over cookfires, and carried beans and salt pork and hardtack back toward their tents with every sign of satisfaction. Halting in mid-afternoon had let the cooks do a proper job of boiling the beans, instead of serving them up as hard little bullets as they so often did.

At five past ten, a scout led Major Horatio Sellers and an officer dressed in the dark blue wool of the U.S. Army up to Jeb Stuart. "General," Sellers said, "allow me to present to you Lieutenant Colonel Theron Winship, commander of the U.S. forces in Contention City."

"Very pleased to make your acquaintance," Stuart said politely, shaking hands with the U.S. officer, a sun-browned fellow in his early forties with a neat blond beard. Stuart waved to the fires and tents behind him. "I have no doubt of the courage of your soldiers, sir, but, as you see, we are present in such force as to make any resistance on your part not only foolish but suicidal."

Winship turned and stared. Not far away, a camel brayed, a hideous, almost unearthly sound. Winship's eyes swung to the beast and fixed on it for close to half a minute. Then he surveyed the camp again. "General," he said at last, his voice hoarse, "had anyone told me you had even a brigade here, I'd have called him a liar to his face. How the devil you managed to move a whole goddamn division so far and so fast is beyond me. My hat's off to you, sir." Fitting action to word, he removed the broad-brimmed black felt from his head.

"I wouldn't have believed it myself," Major Sellers said solemnly.

Stuart was about to kick him in the shins when he redeemed himself by adding, "But the general can do just about anything he sets his mind to."

"I've seen that," Winship said, his voice gloomy. "I was in the Army of the Potomac when he rode all the way around us during the Seven Days." Turning to Stuart, he asked, "What are your terms for the surrender of my force, sir?"

"About what you'd expect: men to stack arms and yield up all ammunition. You and your officers may keep your sidearms."

"Very well." Theron Winship looked at the acres of campfires, at the men moving from one to another, at the rows of tents, at the rows of animals-with another lingering glance of disbelief at the camelsand at the ranked field guns stretching back toward and into the night. "Under the circumstances, that's generous enough. 1 accept."

"Excellent," Stuart said briskly. "Major Sellers will accompany you back to Contention City, to make sure you are complying with the terms. We'll see you by eight tomorrow morning. Be ready to travel then."

They shook hands again. Horatio Sellers looked back toward Stuart. Stuart kept his face bland as grits without butter. With a grunt, Sellers and Lieutenant Colonel Winship rode north toward the Yankee garrison. When Stuart announced to his men that the U.S. officer had surrendered, their cheers and Rebel yells split the night.

As soon as it was light enough to travel, they rode up the San Pedro to Contention City. They reached the refining town before Stuart had said they would. He was glad to see the Yankee troops hadn't burned any of the stamping mills or refineries. He hadn't mentioned that when discussing the surrender with Lieutenant Colonel Winship, for fear of putting ideas in his head.

Winship had his men drawn up in formation, waiting for the Confederates. He had eight companies of infantry there, and a battery of field guns. Fighting from cover, he could have put up a formidable resistance.

When Stuart came up to him, the U.S. officer looked puzzled. "Where are the rest of your men, sir?" he asked. "Have you detached them for duty elsewhere, having obtained my capitulation?"

Stuart knew he should have answered yes to that, to increase Win-ship's confusion. But he couldn't resist the temptation to tell the truth: "Lieutenant Colonel, this is my entire force."

Winship needed a moment to take that in. When he did, he went purple under his coat of tan. "Why, you God-damned son of a bitch!" he shouted, which made his own men stare at him. "You hoaxed me. If I'd known this was all the men you had, I'd've fought-and I'd've whipped you, too."

"I doubt it," Stuart said, on the whole truthfully; Winship could have hurt him, but he didn't think the U.S. officer could have kept him out of Contention City if he had a mind to break in. He grinned at the furious Winship. "It doesn't matter anyhow, not now it doesn't. You're under my guns, sir."

"You hoaxed me," Winship repeated, as if ruses of war were not permitted. "Let me unstack my guns, General, and fight it out. Fair is fair, and this isn't. You got my surrender under false pretenses."

"Yes, and I'm going to keep it, too," Stuart said cheerfully. "My men worked long and hard to set up that camp and all those fires last night. If you think I'm going to waste what they did, Lieutenant Colonel, you can think again."

"It isn't right," Winship insisted. He kept staring at the Confederate soldiers who were taking charge of his men, as if still convinced there should have been five times as many of them as there were. His company officers, on the other hand, were looking at him. Jeb Stuart would not have been happy, were he on the receiving end of those looks.

More of his troopers, including a couple who knew a good deal about mining, went into the refining works. They came out with enormous smiles on their faces. "General, we're going to make us a hell of a lot of money on this little visit," one of them called to Stuart.

"Load up some wagons, then,'" Stuart answered. He detailed guards to try to make sure the profits accrued to the Confederate States rather than to individual soldiers.

"What are you going to do with us?" Theron Winship asked.

It was a good question. Most of the defenders of Contention City were infantrymen. They would have as hard a time keeping up with his troopers as his own foot soldiers would have done. Reluctantly, he decided he had to take them down into Sonora even so. "If I parole you, you'll still be able to fight Indians and free up other men to fight us," he told Winship. "You'll come along south with us, and probably sit out the rest of the war in Hermosillo."

If that prospect appealed to the U.S. officer, he concealed it very well. "General, you've just made a hash of my military career," he said bitterly.

"That's too bad," Stuart answered. "If things had gone the other way, though, you would have made a hash of mine. Since those are my only two choices, I know which one I'd pick if I had my druthers. And since I do-"

Since he did, his soldiers methodically plundered the mineral wealth of Contention City, then set fire to the stamping mills and refineries. With great clouds of black smoke rising behind them, they started south down the San Pedro River toward the border between New Mexico Territory and Sonora.

They didn't push the pace now, not with prisoners marching on foot and the sun blazing down from the sky. Even as things were, men and animals suffered from the heat. It wasn't nearly so humid as it would have been back in New Orleans or Richmond, but it was fifteen degrees or so hotter than it would have been back East, which rendered the advantage meaningless.

To Stuart's disappointment, they didn't reach the deceitfully oversized camp with which he'd fooled Theron Winship before darkness forced a halt to the day's travel. The Confederate commander was proud of his work, and wanted to show it to Winship in detail. Whether the man he'd gulled would have appreciated it never crossed his mind.

Stuart had already fallen asleep when Major Sellers came into his tent and shook him back to consciousness. "Sorry to bother you, sir," he said while Stuart groaned and sat up on his folding bed, "but there's some Indians out there want to have a powwow with you."

"Scouts bring 'cm in?" Stuart asked, pulling on his boots.

"Uh, no, sir," his aide-de-camp answered. "One second they weren't anywhere around. Next thing anybody knew, they were right in front of your tent. They could have come in if they'd had a mind to. They said they've been watching us all day, and we never set eyes on them once."

"They're good at that," Stuart remarked. He stepped out into the night. Sure enough, half a dozen Indians stood there waiting, some with U.S. Springfields, the rest carrying Winchesters. The oldest of them, a stocky fellow in his late fifties or early sixties, let loose with a stream of Spanish. Stuart, unfortunately, knew none.

One of the younger Indians, who had a look of the older, saw that and translated: "My father likes the way you tricked the bluecoats. He wants to fight the bluecoats at your side. He has been fighting them alone too long." More talk from the old man, this time in his own gurgling tongue. Again, the younger one spoke for him: "He wantssanctuary, is that the word? — for his band of the Dineh, the Apaches, you would say, in Sonora, like the Confederacy gives to the tribes in the Indian Territory who right against the USA. When Sonora belonged to Mexico, the bluecoats would chase us over the border. The Confederate States are strong, and will not let that happen. We will fight for you because of this."

"Does he?" Stuart said. "Will you?" Whoever the old Indian was, he had an astute understanding of the way the Confederacy dealt with the Indian tribes along the U.S. border. If he had any power, he might make a useful ally. Even if he was only a bandit chief, his men would make useful scouts. Stuart spoke carefully to the younger Indian: "Tell your father I thank him. Tell him that because I am new in this country, I do not recognize him by sight no matter how famous he may be, but perhaps I will know his name if he gives it to me."

The younger Indian spoke in Apache. When he fell silent, his father nodded to Stuart, then pointed to his own chest. "Geronimo," he said.

Riding over the prairie somewhere between Wichita and the border with the Indian Territory and the Confederacy, Colonel George Custer was in a foul mood. "I have the Thanks of Congress back in my quarters at Fort Dodge," he said to his brother, "there up on the wall where everyone can see it. And what is it for, I ask you?" He answered his own question: "For going after the enemy and hitting him a good lick. It was your idea, I know, but I'm the one with the eagles on my shoulders, so the scroll came to me."

"Don't fret yourself about that, Autie," Tom Custer said. He was not and never had been jealous of his older brother. "Plenty of chances for glory to come our way."

"Not when we're doing what we're doing," Custer ground out. "The Rebs poked at Wichita once, so we have to gallop back and forth to make sure they don't do it again. I tell you, it makes us look like a prizefighter covering up where he got hit last instead of doing any punching himself. And for what? For Wichita?" He clapped a hand to his forehead in florid disbelief.

"It's not much of a town," Tom agreed.

"Not much of a town?" Custer said. "Not much of a town? If it weren't on the railroad, it wouldn't have any reason for existing. Oh, the Rebs shipped a few cows through there ten years ago, when they were still pretending to be nice fellows, but they gave that up a good while ago. Now it just sits there, bleaching in the sun like any old bones. And we have to defend it?" He rolled his eyes.

"We have to defend the railroad line and the telegraph, too," Tom said.

Custer sighed. His brother had advanced the one irrefutable argument. Without the railroads and the talking wire, travel and information in the United States would move as slowly as they had in the days of the Roman Empire. Even bereft of the Confederate States, the United States were too vast to let Roman methods work.

"Trouble is," Custer said, "if we try to defend the whole line of the railroad, that ties up so many men, we can't do much else in these parts."

"I know," Tom answered. "If it's any consolation to you, Autie, the Rebs have exactly the same problem in Texas."

"The only way I want the Rebs to have my problems is for them to have problems I give 'em," Custer said, which made his brother laugh. "I don't want any problems myself, and they're welcome to as many I don't have as they like."

He waved back toward the two Gatling guns, which weren't having any trouble keeping up with his troopers. The men weren't going flat out, of course, and he'd taken pains to make sure the Gatlings had fine horses pulling them. Tom understood his gesture perfectly, saying, "Yes, that's the kind of problem the Rebels should have, all right. Those guns mowed them down same as they did to the Kiowas."

One of Custer's men let out a yell. The colonel's first glance was to the south-were they about to collide with the Confederates? He looked around for a rise on which to site the Gatling guns. What had worked once would probably work twice.

But he saw no Rebel horsemen, nor Indians, either. More troopers were calling out now, and some of them pointing north. Custer spied a courier riding hard for the regiment. He waved to the bugler, who blew Halt. The men reined in. A couple of them took advantage of the stop by getting out their tobacco pouches and rolling cigarettes.

Bringing his lathered horse to a halt, the courier thrust an envelope at Custer. "Urgent, sir," he said, saluting. "From Brigadier General Pope, up at Fort Catton."

Custer stared at him. "Good God," he said. "That's all the way up in Nebraska." The troopers close enough to have heard him started buzzing with speculation. He didn't blame them. Why the devil was General Pope reaching down to the border with the CSA?

Only one way to find out. Custer tore the envelope open and read the orders it contained. When he was done, he read them again. They still said the same thing, no matter how hard a time he had believing it. "What's the news, Autie?" Tom Custer demanded impatiently.

"We- the whole regiment, including the Gatlings- are ordered to report to Fort Catton as expeditiously as possible." Custer knew he sounded numb. He couldn't help it. In the slang of the War of Secession, this was a big thing, and no mistake. "A regiment of volunteer cavalry will take over patrolling here in southern Kansas."

" Fort Catton? On the Platte?" Tom sounded as bewildered as his brother felt. "It's a couple of hundred miles from here, and a couple of hundred miles from any fighting, too. Why don't they send the volunteers there?"

"I don't know. It says we'll get further orders when we arrive." Custer pointed to the courier. "You there, Corporal- do you know anything more about this?"

"No, sir," the horseman answered: a simple but uninformative reply.

"What in the blue blazes does General Pope want with me?" Custer muttered. He wondered if it dated back to his service on McClellan's staff during the War of Secession. Pope and Little Mac had been fierce rivals then. After Lee whipped Pope at Second Manassas, Lincoln had relegated Pope to fighting Indians in the West, and he'd been here ever since. Of course, a little later on Lee had whipped McClellan even worse up at Camp Hill. That relegated the whole war to the ash heap, so Pope was in a sense already vindicated.

"We'll have to find out when we get there, that's all," Tom said. He worried less about Army politics than his brother did. If it was a legal order, he would obey it, and that was that.

And it was a legal order. No questions there. Custer muttered again, this time something Libbie would not have approved of. But Libbie was in Fort Dodge. Who could guess when he would have the pleasure of sleeping in the same bed with her again? He raised his voice and called out to his troopers: "We are ordered to Fort Catton, men, and to leave the defense of the plains to others." Through the surprised exclamations the horsemen sent up, he went on, "We are ordered to reach the fort as quickly as we can. By the speed with which we arrive, I want to show General Pope what sort of men he is getting when he calls upon the Fifth Regiment." The troopers raised a cheer and set out to the north with a will. Not all of them were disappointed to ride away from the dangers of combat.

Fort Catton lay by the confluence of the North Platte and South Platte, across the river from the Union Pacific tracks. From southern Kansas, Custer and his command reached it in a week. The pace told on the men-and even more on the horses. Had Custer had to go much farther, he could not have pressed so hard. But the surprise the sentries at the fort showed when he and the regiment arrived made up for a lot of weariness and discomfort.

He found himself ushered immediately into Brigadier General Pope's office. Pope was a handsome man of about sixty, who wore his hair long-though not so long as Custer did- and had a fine silver beard. "I am altogether delighted to see you here so promptly, Colonel," he said in a deep, rumbling voice; he'd had a reputation for bombast during the War of Secession, and hadn't changed since.

"Reporting as ordered, sir," Custer said. "The orders you sent me said I would receiver further information on coming here."

"And so you shall," Pope declared. "Colonel, President Blaine has named me military governor of Utah Territory. The Mormons there are this far- this far, Colonel"-he held thumb and forefinger together so they almost touched-"from open revolt against the authority of the United States. They have cut off rail service through the Territory, and telegraphy as well. I am charged with restoring them to their allegiance to the USA by any means necessary, and I intend to do exactly that."

"Yes, sir. I see, sir." Custer hadn't heard anything about what the Mormons were up to, but he'd been in the field and then on a forced march. "Trying to take advantage of our being busy elsewhere, are they? A coward's trick, sir, if you care anything for my opinion."

"That is my precise view of the situation, Colonel," Pope said, beaming. "I aim to bring them to heel and to keep them from perpetrating any such outrage in the future. We've tolerated their evil sensuality far too long, and what is our reward? Disloyalty. Well, thanks to it, they have placed themselves beyond the pale. I am assured on highest authority that whatever I do will be accepted, as long as they are reduced to obedience."

"Very good, sir." Custer breathed a silent sigh of relief that arguments left over from the War of Secession were not what had brought him here. Now to find out what had: "How does my regiment fit into your plan, sir?"

"I am assembling an army with which to occupy the Territory, especially the essential rail lines," Pope said. Custer remembered his own recent thoughts on the importance of railroads. Pope went on, "You and your men have already shown you can do good work, and, as regulars, are more reliable than volunteer units. And I have noted your success with the Gatling gun. I aim to overawe the Mormons, to demonstrate how futile any resistance to my might must be. Many of them, no doubt, have rifles. But they have no artillery to speak of, and they have no Gatlings. Once they see the destructive power of these weapons, they will be less inclined to try anything rash, and more likely to suffer if they do."

"Yes, sir!" Custer said enthusiastically. He hesitated, then asked, "And if they persist in their foolishness, sir? If they attempt to resist us by force of arms?"

"If they are so stupid, Colonel, then we wipe them off the face of the earth." Pope sounded as if he looked forward to such a result. "That's what we've done with the savages who presumed to challenge our expansion over the western plains, and that's what we'll do with the Mormons. If they resist us, they deserve destruction even more than the redskins, for they are not primitive by nature, but rather men of our own stock corrupted by a wicked, perverse, and licentious doctrine."

"Yes, sir," Custer said again. Having come out of McClellan's camp, with the natural bias of Little Mac's staff officers against the Young Napoleon's rivals, he had never imagined John Pope to be a man of such obvious and evident good sense. "If they transgress against the moral code universally recognized as correct and legitimate, on their heads be it."

"Well said." Pope was studying Custer with some of the same surprise with which Custer had eyed him. After coughing once or twice, the brigadier general said, "I hope you will forgive my saying this, Colonel, but I had not expected us to see so many things in so nearly the same light."

"If the general will pardon me, sir, neither had I," Custer answered. "I suspect we are both bound by the prejudices of the past." Impulsively, Custer thrust out his hand. Pope clasped it. Custer went on, "The only enemies I recognize as such-the only enemies I have ever recognized as such-are the enemies of the United States of America."

"I think we shall work very well together, then, for my attitude is the same in every particular," Pope said. His smile, which showed a couple of missing teeth, was not altogether pleasant. "Do you know who happens to be in Salt Lake City at the moment, Colonel?" When Custer shook his head, Pope took no small pleasure in enlightening him: "Abraham Lincoln. I have it on good authority from the War Department."

"Is he, by thunder?" Custer said. "Well, there's the first good reason I've heard yet for letting the Mormons go their own way."

John Pope stared at him, then threw back his head and roared Jovian laughter. "That's good, Colonel; that's very good indeed. It hadn't occurred to me, but I suppose it's true that those who were of General McClellan's party have as much cause to deprecate the capacity of our former chief executive as I do myself." Plainly, he'd forgotten nothing over the years: neither his rivalry with McClellan nor his humiliation at being so ignominiously sent to the sidelines after failing against Lee and Jackson.

Custer said, "Sir, I don't know of any U.S. officer serving during the War of Secession who does not have good cause to deprecate the capacity of Honest Abe, such as it is. I do know that the only good thing I've had to say about the Republican Party in all the years since is that they've finally given us the chance to have another go at the Confederate States-and now the Mormons are trying to interfere with that."

This time, Pope reached out to shake Custer's hand. "Colonel, whatever hard feelings may have existed between us in the past, I am suddenly certain we shall work together very well indeed." Custer beamed at him. He was suddenly certain of the same thing. Pope took a bottle and a couple of glasses from a desk drawer. He poured amber liquid into the glasses, then passed one to Custer. "Down with the Mormons, and with Abe Lincoln, too!"

"I'm normally teetotal, General, but how can I resist a toast like that?" Custer drank the whiskey. It burned his throat; he'd drunk hardly at all since the War of Secession. Manfully, he didn't cough. In his stomach, it was warm.

Philadelphia struck Alfred von Schlieffen as being a real city, a city with past, present, and future. Washington, D.C., had always given him the impression of existing in a world of its own, slightly skewed from the rest of the planet. Because it had sprung ex nihilo from the wilderness by government fiat, it lacked many of the irregularities and imperfections that made cities interesting and different from one another. And, existing as it had for a generation under the guns of the Confederate States, Washington had also felt impermanent, as if it was liable to be smashed to bits at any moment.

"And so it has been," Schlieffen murmured. Some of the staff of the German ministry remained behind in Washington; the Confederates had not tried to occupy it, and their bombardment was desultory these days. Schlieffen and Kurd von Schlozer had come north, though, the military attache to maintain his connections in the War Department, the minister to offer whatever services in the cause of peace he could to President Blaine and to represent the interests of Great Britain (though not those of France) with the U.S. government.

Grudgingly, Schlieffen conceded that the War Department's move from Washington up to Philadelphia had gone more smoothly than he'd expected. "But," he said to the German minister after the two of them had settled into offices at the headquarters of the German consul in Philadelphia (a prominent sausage merchant), "but, I say, Your Excellency, they were madmen-madmen, I tell you-to delay so long. One well-placed Confederate shell and the United States would have had no War Department left."

"I am not saying you are mistaken, Colonel Schlieffen." Schlozer paused to make a production of lighting a large, smelly cigar- the larger and smellier the cigar, the better he liked it. "I am asking whether it would have made much difference in the way the United States arc conducting the war if they were suddenly bereft of this department."

Seeing General Rosecrans leaving Washington, Schlieffen had wondered the same thing. Now he considered the question objectively, as he had been trained to do while serving on the General Staff. "Do you know, Your Excellency, it is very possible that you are right. The General-In-Chief has not the competence to serve in his capacity."

"That is your judgment to make. Colonel, but it is not precisely what I meant in any case." Kurd von Schlozer blew a meditative and rather lopsided smoke ring. "The individual American, or the small group of Americans, has far more ingenuity and initiative than the individual German or small group of Germans. But we are much better at harnessing many small groups to work together for a common purpose. The Americans might be better off without anyone trying to impose order on them, for they do not take to it well."

"You have said several things on this order," Schlieffen replied thoughtfully. "If you are correct, this country must be doomed to anarchy before too long. I would call that a pity, the Americans' situation on this continent having so much in common with our own in Europe."

"If they would set their house in order, they might make valuable allies," Schlozer agreed. "They might make allies of sorts in any case, but they would be worth more if they regimented themselves better."

"This is true of anyone," Schlieffen said, as if quoting God's law from Deuteronomy. Trying to be charitable, he went on, "Even we Prussians needed to put our house in order after Napoleon defeated us."

"Defeat is often a salutary lesson," Schlozer said, nodding. "Of course, a generation ago, the United States were defeated in the War of Secession, and seem to have learned little from that. They made an even greater point of antagonizing Britain and France this time than in the previous war."

"I wonder what the Confederate States have learned," Schlieffen said. "They are full of Americans, too."

"They have learned at least one thing the United States have not," the German minister replied. He waited for Schlieffen to make a polite interrogative noise, then went on, "They have learned to make alliances, and to make those alliances last. The folk of the United States are so cross-grained, this seems not to have occurred to them, and that the Confederate States can do it is certainly part of the resentment the United States bear against them."

"Foolishness," Schlieffen said, like a man judging the antics of a neighbor who, while a good enough fellow, could not keep from getting drunk three nights a week. "If the United States are not strong enough to do as they desire by themselves, they need allies of their own."

"The last allies they had were France and Spain, in their war of rebellion against Britain," Schlozer said. "Since then, they have lost the knack for making them. They lived alone behind the Atlantic, and, like a woodcutter alone in the forest, forgot how to make friends with others. Now, with the Confederate States bringing alliances to the American continent, the United States need to relearn the arts of diplomacy." He sighed. "They have not yet taken this lesson to heart."

"If they learn the lessons of war well enough, the lessons of diplomacy matter less," Schlieffen said. One corner of his mouth twitched, a gesture of irony as dramatic as any he permitted himself. "They have, unfortunately, shown no great aptitude for the lessons of war, either."

"It is a pity," Kurd von Schlozer said.

"Also a pity that I have not yet been permitted to observe any of the war save the Confederate bombardment of Washington, and that observation was not thanks to the good offices of the government of the United States," Schlieffen said.

"As you requested, Colonel, I have laid on the carriage for you today, so that you may go down to the War Department and protest once more," Schlozer said.

"For this I thank you very much," Schlieffen said. "It is important that I do observe and report my findings to the Fatherland. Weapons have advanced considerably since we fought the French. As with the late war between the Russians and the Turks, what we learn here will apply to any future conflicts of ours. The Russians and Turks were less than strategically astute, I must say, and so are the USA and CSA, but still-"

"I have in the past heard you speak well of Confederate strategy and tactics," Schlozer said.

"Compared to those of the United States, yes," Schlieffen said. "Compared to ours, no." And then, because he was a judicious man, he added, "On the whole, no. Some of what they do shows a certain amount of insight, I admit."

He took his leave of the German minister of the United States and went downstairs, where the carriage was indeed waiting for him. Gustav Kleinvogel's sausage factory, and, therefore, the German consulate, and, therefore, for the time being, the German ministry, were in the appropriately named Germantown district, north of Philadelphia 's city center. It was also appropriate, Schlieffen thought as he got into the carriage, for politics and sausage making to be so inextricably mixed. As Bismarck had observed, in neither did it pay to examine too closely the ingredients that went into the final product.

Washington 's reason for being was- or perhaps had beengovernment. Philadelphia had been a thriving port and industrial center for many years before the results of the War of Secession forced big chunks of the government of the United States to move north, away from the muzzles of Confederate cannon. Factories belched black smoke into the air. So did the stacks of steamships and trains bringing raw materials into the city and taking away finished goods. Schlieffen looked on the smoke with approval, as a sign of modernity.

In Philadelphia, the War Department operated out of a building of muddy-brown brick northwest of Franklin Square. It was, Schlieffen thought, an even homelier edifice than the one next to the White House in Washington. He was of the opinion that the military should have the finest headquarters possible, to hearten the men who protected the nation. The view of the United States seemed to be that the military, like any other arm of the government, rated only the cheapest headquarters possible.

The sentries at the entrance were not so well trained as those with whom he had dealt in Washington. That his uniform was close to the shade of theirs convinced them he was no Confederate, but they had not the slightest clue as to what a military attache was, what he did, or what his privileges were. He had to grow quite severe before one of them would take a message announcing his presence up to General Rosecrans' office. The fellow returning looking flabbergasted at bearing the news that Rosecrans would sec Schlieffen at once.

A different sentry escorted him up to the office of the general-in-chief. In the outer office, he traded English for Captain Berryman's German. He listened to the bright young adjutant with only half an car, for in the inner office General Rosecrans was bellowing, '"Yes, Mr. President… I'll try and take care of it, Your Excellency… Yes, of course." That left Schlieffen puzzled, for he could not hear President Blaine at all, and the chief executive of the United States did not have a reputation for being soft-spoken-on the contrary.

Presently, Rosecrans came out into the antechamber. Looking harassed, he said, "Captain, I am convinced the telephone is an invention of the devil, inflicted upon us poor soldiers so politicians can harangue us at any hour of the day or night, without even the pause for thought sending a telegram affords." That off his chest, he deigned to notice Schlieffen. "Come in, Colonel, come in," he said, invitingly standing aside from the doorway. "Believe me, it will be a pleasure to talk with a man who knows what he's talking about. Have you got telephones in Germany, Colonel?"

"I believe we are beginning to use them, yes," Schlieffen said, eyeing with interest the wooden box and small attached speaking trumpet bolted to the wall by Rosecrans' desk.

"Invention of the devil," Rosecrans repeated. "Nothing but trouble." He waved his visitor to a chair, then asked, "And what can I do for you today besides complain about inventors who should have been strangled in the cradle? Bell 's a Canadian, which probably explains a good deal."

It explained nothing to Schlieffen. Since it didn't, he came straight to the point: "As I asked in Washington, General, I should like to get a close view of the fighting in this war. Perhaps you will be so kind as to authorize my travel for this purpose to the headquarters of one of your armies in the field."

"Very well, Colonel; 1 can do that." Rosecrans had made promises before. Schlieffen was about to ask him to be more specific when he did so unasked: "We are going to take Louisville away from the Rebs. How would you like to watch us while we're doing that?"

Schlieffen glanced at the map hanging by the telephone. "You will send me to the province of Indiana? The state, I should say-excuse me. You plan on crossing the Ohio River to make your assault? Yes, I should be most interested in seeing that." If France ever mounted an invasion of Germany, she would have to cross the Rhine. Seeing how the United States attempted a river crossing in the face of opposition would tell Schlieffen something of what the French might try; seeing how the Confederates defended the province-no, the state-of Kentucky would also be informative.

"Well, that's easy enough, isn't it?" Rosecrans reached into his desk for stationery and with his own hand wrote the authorization Schlieffen needed. "Nice to know something is easy, by thunder. The Rebs aren't-I'm finding that out. But you hang onto that sheet there, and I'll send a telegram letting 'em know you're on the way."

"Thank you very much," Schlieffen said, and then, sympathetically, "A pity your arms did not have better luck in Virginia."

Rosecrans flushed. "They have Stonewall, dammit," he muttered. He had an ugly expression on his face, to go with the ugly color he'd turned. Austrian generals- and Prussian generals, too- must have talked that way about Bonaparte. Austrian generals-and French generals, too- must have talked that way about Moltke.

Sympathetically still, Schlieffen said, "As you have said to me, your land is wide. General Jackson cannot be everywhere at once, cannot take charge of all the battles your two countries are fighting."

"Thank God for that," Rosecrans said. The telephone on the wall clanged, like a trolley using its bell to warn traffic at a corner. Rosecrans went over to it. He listened, then shouted, "Hello again, Mr. President." That hunted look came back onto his face. Schlieffen left before the general had to order him out. As he walked down the hall toward the stairs, he heard Rosecrans still shouting behind him. All at once, he hoped the General Staff back home in Berlin did without this newfangled invention.

"Come on!" Samuel Clemens fussed like a mother hen. "Come on, everyone. We've no time to waste, not a single, solitary minute."

Alexandra Clemens set her hands on her hips. "Sam, if you'll look around, you'll see that you're the only one here who isn't ready for the picnic."

"Well, what has that got to do with the price of persimmons?"

Sam demanded. "Pshaw! If you hadn't stolen my jacket, I'd have it on by now."

His wife didn't know anything about persimmons: she was that rarity, a native San Franciscan, having been born a little more than a year after the gold rush started Americans flooding into California. She did, however, know where his jacket was: "It's hanging on the chair behind you there, Sam, where you put it when you looked under the bed for your shoes."

"And I found them, too, didn't I?" Clemens said, as if in triumph. He put on the white linen jacket, jammed a hat down over his ears, and handed Alexandra a sunbonnet. "There! All ready. Now we'd better see what mischief the children have got into since you started hiding things from me."

Ignoring that sally, Alexandra Clemens said, "They are being quiet downstairs, aren't they?" She swept out of the bedroom in a rustle of skirts. "What are they doing?" Sam hurried after her.

The quiet broke even as they hurried-broke into shouts from both Orion and Ophelia, a growl from Sutro the dog, and a series of yowls and hisses from Virginia the cat. Virginia shot by at a speed that would have done credit to a Nevada jackrabbit, then vanished under the sofa in lieu of diving into a hole in the ground.

"She scratched me!" Ophelia said. "Bad kitty!"

Sam examined the damage, which was superficial. "The next question before the house, young lady, is why she scratched you."

Ophelia stood mute. Orion, either more naive or less sure of how much his parents had seen, said, "We weren't really trying to feed Ginny to Sutro, Pa. It just looked that way, honest Injun."

"Did it?" Sam said. Departure for the picnic was briefly delayed for reasons having nothing to do with missing clothes. When Orion and Ophelia climbed up into the family buggy, they took their seats with considerable caution. Above their heads, Sam and Alexandra looked into each other's eyes. That might have been a mistake. They both had all they could do to keep from laughing.

The horse went down a couple of blocks to Fulton, and then west to Golden Gate Park, a narrow rectangle of land south of the Richmond district. Much of it was sand dunes and scrubby grass. Here and there, where irrigation and better soil had been brought in, real grass grew and young, hopeful trees sprouted.

Sam tethered the horse to an oak that had advanced further beyond saplinghood than most. He gave it a long lead, so it could crop the grass and, thus distracted, not interfere with the family's enjoyment of a Sunday afternoon. Having explained this to his wife, he added, "Don't you wish we could do the same with the children?"

"Not more than half a dozen times a day," Alexandra answered. "Not usually, anyhow." She spread a blanket on the grass, then set the picnic hamper upon it. Ham sandwiches and fried shrimp from a Chinese cafe and hard-boiled eggs-not the elderly sort the Chinese esteemed-and a homemade peach pie and cream puffs from an Italian bakery and lemonade were enough to keep the children from running wild for a while, and gave them sufficient ballast once they were through to slow them down for a while.

"Ha! First match!" Sam said proudly once he got his cigar going. That proved what a fine, mild day it was. The wind blew off the Pacific, as it almost always did, but only gently. "It's not strong enough to lift sand today, let alone dogs, trees, houses, or one of Mayor Sutro's public proclamations," he added. "Of course, they call that kind of wind a cyclone."

"I call that kind of wind an editorial," Alexandra said, which made him mime being cut to the quick.

Other picnicking families dotted the grass of the park. Children ran and played and got into fights. Boys barked their bare knees. Somebody who'd brought a bottle of something that wasn't lemonade started singing loudly and badly. Sam lay back, watched the gulls wheeling through the blue sky, and declared, "I refuse to let myself despair on account of God's creation being imperfect to the extent of one noisy drunk."

Alexandra reached out and ruffled his hair. "I'm sure He could have done a much better job if only He'd listened to you."

"It's so nice to know, my dear, that we can stay together when they start burning freethinkers," he said, quite without irony. "And to think that, if I'd left San Francisco, I never would have met you. I didn't intend to settle down here, not for good." He started another cigar, also on the first match. "But it has turned out to be good, I'd say."

Before Alexandra could answer-if she was going to answer with anything more than a smile-the breeze brought a thin scries of cries from the west: "Hut! Hut! Hut hut hut!"

"Hear that?" Orion said to Ophelia, who nodded. "You know what it is?" She shook her head. He was jumping up and down with excitement. "That's soldiers, that's what it is!" He ran off, legs pumping. His little sister followed a moment later, slower both because she was younger and because her dress dragged the ground, but determined even so.

Samuel Clemens got to his feet. "Those are soldiers, of sorts," he said; he knew the sounds of drill when he heard them. "I'd forgotten they were teaching the volunteers to walk-I beg your pardon, to march-in the park. I think I'll have a look at them myself. After all, they may be protecting us one day soon-and if that notion doesn't frighten you, for heaven's sake why not?"

"Go ahead," Alexandra said. "I'll stay here and make sure things don't take a mind to wander off by themselves."

Only a couple of low swells of ground had hidden the volunteer troops from Sam. There on the grass, surrounded by admirers, a company raggedly marched and countermarched. Seeing them took Clemens back across the years to his own brief service as a Confederate volunteer. They looked just the way his comrades had: like men who wanted to be soldiers but didn't have it down yet.

About half of them wore Army blouses. About half wore Army trousers. Only a few wore both. The rest of the clothes were a motley mixture of civilian styles. A few carried Army Springfields. Rather more had Winchesters, probably their own weapons. Many still shouldered boards in place of rifles.

"Left!" shouted the sergeant drilling them, a grizzled veteran no doubt from the Presidio. A majority of them did start out with the left foot. He cursed the rest with fury enough to make women flee, small boys cheer, and Clemens smile reminiscently. No, sergeants hadn't changed a bit.

Somebody called, "What the devil good are you people if you can't get to where the shooting's at because the Mormons have the railroad blocked?"

One of the volunteers took the board off his shoulder and thrust with it as if it were a bayoneted Springfield. "We ain't afraid o' no Mormons," he declared, "nor their wives, neither. They send us east, we'll clean them bastards out and then go on and slaughter the Rebs." Spectators burst into applause.

The drill sergeant was less impressed. "Pay attention to what I tell you, Henry, you goddamn stupid jackass," he bellowed. "Forget about these, these, these- civilians." He could have cursed for a day and a half without venting more scorn than he packed into the single word. Still in stentorian tones, he went on, "How do you know that nosy bastard isn't a Confederate spy?"

"I am not!" the man so described said indignantly.

"I'm sorry, Sergeant," Henry said. "I didn't think."

"Of course you didn't think," the sergeant snarled. "You've got your brains in your backside, and you blow 'em out every time you go to the latrine. And you're not sorry yet. You haven't even started being sorry yet. But you will be, oh yes you will." He spoke in somber anticipation of disaster still ahead for the unfortunate volunteer private. "Hut! Hut! Hut hut hut!"

A small hand tugged at Sam's trouser leg. Face shining, Orion looked up at him. "I wanna be a soldier, Pa, and have a gun. Can I be a soldier when I get big?"

Before Clemens could answer that, Ophelia, who'd tagged after her brother, shook her head so vehemently that golden curls flew out from under the edge of her bonnet. "Not me," she said, and folded her arms across her chest as if things were already settled. "I want to be a sergeant."

Sam threw back his head and shouted laughter. He picked up Ophelia, spun her through the air till she squealed, then set her back on the ground. "1 think you'll do it, too, little one-either that or wife, which is the same job except you don't get to wear stripes on your sleeve."

"What about me, Pa?" Orion jumped up and down. "Pa, what about me?"

"Well, what about you?" Clemens spun his son around and around, too. By the time he put Orion down, the boy was too dizzy to walk, and had had all thoughts of soldiering whirled out of his head. Sam hoped they wouldn't come back. Having been a small boy himself, he knew what a forlorn hope that was.

When Orion was steady on his pins, Sam took both children back to Alexandra. As if by magic, she produced two more cream puffs. That partially reconciled Ophelia and Orion to going home.

Alexandra was putting the picnic hamper back in the buggy and Sam folding the blanket so he could lay it on top of the hamper when a great roar, like a rifle shot magnified a hundredfold, smote the air. Even the gulls in the sky went silent for a moment, then screeched their anger at being frightened so.

Ophelia squealed. Orion jumped. "Good heavens!" Alexandra said. "What was that?"

"One of the big guns up at the Presidio," Sam answered. "They've had guns there since this place belonged to Spain — never mind Mexico. I don't think any of them have ever shot at anything." Another roar, identical to the first, disturbed the tranquility of Golden Gate Park — and of the rest of San Francisco, and, no doubt, of a good stretch of surrounding landscape as well. Sam thoughtfully peered northward. "Sounds like they're getting ready to, though, doesn't it?"

"Golly!" Orion said. "It'd be fun to shoot one of those." This time, Ophelia agreed with her brother.

"How much fun do you think it would be to have somebody shooting one at you?" Sam asked. His children stared at him. That side of war meant nothing to them. It seldom meant anything to anyone till the first bullet flew past him.

The coast-defense guns kept firing as Sam drove home. "By the sound of them," Alexandra said, "they think we're going to be attacked tomorrow."

"Whatever else may happen in this curious world of ours, my dear, I don't expect the Confederate Navy to come steaming into San Francisco Bay tomorrow, flags flying and guns blazing." Sam winked at his wife. "Nor the day after, either."

"Well, no," Alexandra said. "Hardly." Another gun boomed. "I suppose they have to practice, the same as the soldiers you were watching."

"If they're no better at their jobs than those poor lugs, the Indians could paddle a fleet of birchbark canoes into the Bay and devastate the city." Sam held up a forefinger. "I exaggerate: a flotilla of canoes." That made Alexandra laugh, which was what he'd had in mind.

When they got back to the house on Turk Street, Ophelia and Orion ran themselves and the pets ragged. Watching them, listening to them, Sam wondered where they came by the energy; even though they'd torn up Golden Gate Park all afternoon, they were still going strong. But, by the time he and Alexandra went through the house lighting the gas lamps, the children were fading. They went to bed with much less fuss than they usually put up, and fell asleep almost at once. Ophelia snored, but then Ophelia always snored.

Once things had been quiet for a while, Alexandra said, "Shall we go to bed, too?" By her tone of voice, she didn't mean, Shall we go to sleep?

"Yes, let's." Sam sounded casual, or thought he sounded casual, but the alacrity with which he leaped up and turned off the lamps they'd lighted not long before surely gave him away.

He turned off the bedroom lamp, too, before he and his wife undressed and lay down together. A thin stripe of moonlight came in through the window, just enough to make Alexandra's body, warm and soft in his arms, a more perfect mystery than complete darkness would have done.

She sighed and murmured when he kissed her, when he fondled her breasts and brought his mouth down to them, when his hand found the dampness at the joining of her thighs. As always, her excitement excited and embarrassed him at the same time. Doctors swore on a stack of Bibles that most women knew little or nothing of sexual pleasure, and did not care to make its acquaintance. But then, considering the track record doctors had elsewhere, how much did that prove?

With Alexandra, it proved very little. "Come on, Sam," she whispered after a while, and took him in hand to leave no doubt as to her meaning. Her legs drifted farther apart. He poised himself between them and guided himself into her. Her breath sighed out. When their lips met, she kissed him as she did at no other time. She worked with him while their pleasure built, and moaned and gasped and called his name when she reached the peak. Her nails were claws in his back, urging him on till he exploded a moment later.

When he would have flopped limply down onto her as if she were a feather bed, she poked him in the ribs. "Terrible woman," he said, and rolled off. It was mostly but not entirely a joke; the delight he took with her sometimes seemed scandalous, married though they were. If she felt any similar compunctions, she'd never once shown it.

They used the chamber pot under the bed and got into their nightclothes in the dark. "Good night, dear," Alexandra said, her voice blurry.

"Good night," Sam answered, and kissed her. "Work tomorrow." In its own way, that was a curse as vile as any the foul-mouthed sergeant had used in Golden Gate Park.

Reveille blared from the bugler's horn. Theodore Roosevelt bounded out of his cot and groped for the spectacles on the stool next to it. "Half past five!" he exclaimed as he threw on his uniform: an obliging tailor in Helena had fitted him out. "What a wonderful time to be alive!"

He rushed from his tent into the cool sunshine of early morning. The ranch house stood, comfortable and reassuring, less than a hundred feet away. Roosevelt was glad to have an excuse to avoid comfort. Were comfort all he wanted, he could have stayed in New York State. When the men of Roosevelt 's Unauthorized Regiment lived under canvas, their equally unauthorized colonel would not sleep in an ordinary bed with a roof over his head.

The men of the Unauthorized Regiment lived under a great variety of canvas. Some slept in tents that dated back to the War of Secession. Some, prospectors who'd heard of the Regiment when they came into Helena or another nearby town, had brought the tents in which they'd sheltered out in the wilderness. There were even a few who shared buffalo-hide teepees that might easily have belonged to the Sioux.

They came tumbling out now, routed by the strident notes of the morning call. The only thing uniform about their shirts and trousers and hats was a lack of uniformity. Some of them had one article or another of military clothing. Some were veterans, while others had acquired the gear from soldiers either leaving the service or selling it on the sly. Most, though, wore civilian clothes of varying degrees of quality and decrepitude. The variety in hats was particularly astonishing.

Whatever else the men had on, though, each of them wore a red bandanna tied around his left upper arm. That was the mark of the Unauthorized Regiment, and the men had already made it a mark to respect in every saloon within a day's ride of Roosevelt 's ranch. Several loudmouths were nursing injuries of various sorts for having failed to respect it. No one was dead because of that, and, by now, odds were no one would be: roughnecks had learned the men of the Regiment looked after one another like brothers, and that a challenge to one was a challenge to all.

"Fall in by troops for roll call!" Roosevelt shouted. The men were already doing precisely that. They'd picked up the routine of military life in a hurry. Some, of course, had known it before, either half a lifetime earlier in the War of Secession or in the more recent campaigns against the Plains Indians. Their example rubbed off on the new volunteers-and on Roosevelt, who had everything he knew about running a regiment from tactical manuals by Hardec (even if he was a Rebel) and Upton. "Fall in for roll call!" he yelled again.

"Listen to the old man," one of the Unauthorized troopers said to a friend, who laughed and nodded. Roosevelt grinned from ear to ear. Both men were close to twice his age. That they granted him an informal title of respect usually given to an officer who was well up in years showed he'd won their respect as a commander: so he assured himself, anyhow.

Troop officers and noncoms-elected by their comrades, as had been done in volunteer regiments during the War of Secession-went through the men. They brought Roosevelt the returns: half a dozen sick, three absent without leave. "They're probably hung over in Helena, sir," one of the captains said.

"So they are," Roosevelt said grimly. "They'll be even sorrier than that when they turn up wagging their tails behind them, too." The manuals stressed an officer's need to be strict in the way he dealt with his men. The manuals, of course, were written for regulars; volunteers needed a lighter touch. Roosevelt's own inclination was to keep a light rein on his troopers as long as they went in the direction in which he wanted to guide them, but to land on them hard when they strayed from the straight and narrow.

After roll call, the bracing smell of brewing coffee filled the air as the men lined up for mess call. Along with the coffee, the cooks served up beans and salt pork, hardtack, bread, and rolls, and oatmeal. The road between Helena and Roosevelt 's ranch was getting deep new ruts in it from supply wagons rattling back and forth. His bank account back in New York was getting deep new ruts in it, too. He noted that without worrying about it unduly; the country came first.

From breakfast, the troopers went to tend their horses. Along with beans and other provender for men, those wagons brought in hay by the ton, and oats to go with it. No one within a couple of miles downwind of the ranch could have had the slightest doubt that a great many horses were dwelling there. Flies got bad when the weather warmed up, but they hadn't started buzzing yet.

Philander Snow came up to Roosevelt; to Roosevelt 's disappointment, he still showed no interest in joining the Regiment. Working in the fields and with the livestock-what the troopers hadn't eaten of it-contented him. Pausing now to spit, he observed, "One thing's plain as day, boss-you ain't gonna need to go out and buy manure for about the next hundred years."

"That's a fact, Phil," Roosevelt allowed. "A regiment's worth of horses leaves a lot on the ground, don't they?" A regiment's worth of cavalrymen left a lot on the ground, too. They'd already had to dig a couple of new sets of slit trenches. Roosevelt didn't want those too close to the creek or the well. That way lay sickness; the Roman legionaries had known as much. If typhoid-or, worse, cholera- broke out, he'd be down to half a regiment in nothing flat.

The first wagon of the day came rattling up from Helena a little past eight in the morning. Roosevelt 's quartermaster sergeant, a skinny little fellow name Shadrach Perkins who was a storekeeper down in Wickes, took charge of the sacks of beans and crates of hardtack it contained. The teamster who'd driven the wagon to the ranch handed Roosevelt a copy of the Helena Gazette. "Hot off the press, Colonel," he said.

"Good," Roosevelt answered, and tossed him a ten-cent tip. Since the supply wagons had started coming up from Helena every day, he was far less cut off from the world than he had been before. Now, instead of waiting a week or two between looks at a newspaper, he got word of what was going on as fast as the telegraph brought it into town and the typesetters turned it into words on paper.

What Roosevelt read now made him paw the ground like one stallion challenging another over a mare. He felt that full of rage, too. " Richardson!" he roared. "Get your damn bugle, Richardson!" He fumed until the trumpeter came dashing up, horn in hand, then snapped, "Blow Assembly."

"All right, Colonel," Richardson answered. "What's up and gone south on us now?" Roosevelt glared at him till he raised the bugle to his lips and blasted out the call.

Men came running; a summons during morning fatigues was out of the ordinary and therefore a good bet to be interesting and maybe even important. The troopers buzzed with talk until Roosevelt strode out before them, Helena Gazette clenched in his left fist. "Do you men know-do you men have any idea-what the Confederate States, the English, and the French have had the infernal impudence to do?" he demanded.

"Reckon you're gonna tell us, ain't you, Colonel?" a trooper said.

Roosevelt ignored the distraction, which, for a man of his temperament, wasn't easy. But fury still consumed him. "They have had the gall, the nerve, to declare a blockade against the coasts and harbors of the United States of America — against our coasts and harbors, gentlemen, saying we have not got the right to conduct our own commerce." He squeezed the Gazette in his fist and waved it about, as if it were the criminal rather than the messenger. "Shall this great nation let such an insult stand?"

"No!" shouted the cavalry troopers, who were about as far from any coast as men in the United States could be.

"You're right, boys!" Roosevelt agreed. "We won't let it stand. By jingo, we can't let it stand. These vile foreign dogs will see they're barking at the wrong hound if they think they can impose themselves on the United States that way. We'll lick 'em back to their kennels with their tails between their legs."

By the time he was done whipping up the men, they were ready to ride for the Canadian border and shoot everybody they could catch who followed Queen Victoria instead of President Blaine. By the time he was done whipping himself up, he was ready to lead them over the border. He needed a distinct effort of will to remember his Regiment was still Unauthorized. If they went over the border, it wouldn't be war; it would be a filibustering expedition, and the enemy would be within his rights to treat them as bandits. He sighed. He hated having to remember such fine distinctions.

"Let's ride," he shouted. "To horse and let's ride! We cannot fight the backstabbing Englishman and complacent Canuck, not yet, not until we are formally invested with the mantle of the government of the United States. But we can ready ourselves so that, when the investiture comes-as it certainly shall-we'll be ready to do our all for the land we hold dear."

It wasn't what he'd planned to do with the day. It also wasn't the first time his impetuosity had run away with him. He knew himself well enough to be sure it wouldn't be the last time his impetuosity ran away with him. The tide of cheers the men unleashed made breaking routine seem worthwhile.

Almost as fast as he would have liked, Roosevelt 's Unauthorized Regiment was mounted and pounding north along the road in a long, sinewy column of fours. They thundered past wagons and buggies and lone horsemen who stared and stared at the power Roosevelt had assembled and now controlled. Those stares left him happier than the whiskey that flowed like water in the Montana mining towns. Anyone could get a drink of whiskey. Only a few men, special men, great men, attracted the awe the Regiment gained for him.

"Heavens above, this is bully!" he cried in a great voice. Just then, he would gladly have kept riding all the way to Canada. He would gladly have kept riding all the way through Canada. With the men he had at his back, he was sure he could do it.

Prudence prevailed, though. Montana Territory was as yet thinly settled; finding open land on which the Regiment could practice its evolutions was only a matter of riding out past the little farms and herds of livestock that clung close to running water. Once out on the prairie, the horsemen went through the tedious but vital business of shifting from column into line, of moving by the left flank and the right, and also, much to Roosevelt 's delight, of charging straight at an unfortunately imaginary enemy.

But, because Roosevelt had read the latest tactical manuals, the Unauthorized Regiment also practiced fighting as dragoons: mounted infantry. With some of their number left behind to hold horses, the rest tramped in skirmish lines through the grass and brush. The troops' captains had to rotate the job of horse-holder through their units, because everyone wanted to go forward and no one was keen to be left behind.

As the afternoon wore along, Roosevelt came to another of his snap decisions. "We'll sleep here in the open tonight, men," he announced. "We need to be hardened, to ready ourselves against the rigors of the field."

Some of the men-the lazy ones who hadn't bothered packing hardtack and salt pork in their knapsacks, unless Roosevelt missed his guess-grumbled at that, but their comrades' jeers squelched them. The soldiers (so Roosevelt insisted on thinking of them, though they remained Unauthorized despite telegrams to the War Department in Philadelphia) were getting the idea that they had to be prepared when they took the field.

"You never know what may happen," Roosevelt said. "You simply never know." He was looking north, toward Canada.