"Your glass is empty," Salazar said sympathetically. He filled it from an earthenware jug. Stuart stared, glassy-eyed. The mescal didn't seem to bother the alcalde.
Food helped. The sauce on the pork was as spicy as it smelled. It started a fire of its own in Stuart's belly, and seemed to counteract the fire from the firewater. He ate bread, too, hoping it would help absorb some of the second tumbler of mescal.
Disappointingly few senoritas were in evidence. The band thumped out something that might have been a dance tune or an improvisation. Whatever it was, people started dancing to it. About seven out of eight were men. Nobody cared much. After more mescal flowed, nobody cared at all.
In the middle of a quadrille with the colonel of the Fifth Confederate Cavalry, Stuart said, "If a horse danced the way you do, they'd shoot it."
"If a camel danced the way you do, they'd shoot it," retorted Colonel Calhoun Ruggles, who, when it came to camels, knew whereof he spoke. Being considerably elevated by mescal, he needed a moment to remember proper military courtesy. "Sir."
After a while, Stuart decided to take a blow. While he leaned against an adobe wall and watched his officers and the Cananeans cavorting, Senor Salazar tapped him on the shoulder. The alcalde swayed where he stood; by now, whatever his capacity, he'd illuminated himself even more generously than the Confederates. But he spoke with great earnestness: "Do you know, General, those Indios will take your guns and take your bullets and go up into the Sierra Madre"-he pointed west, then, correcting himself, east-"and they be bandidos there. They go up there, they be bandidos forever."
"They can be bandidos against the United States," Stuart said. "They won't be bandidos against your people any more."
"Maybe you are right. Quien sabe?" The alcalde smiled a sweet, sad, drunk smile. "But if you are right, then the Estados Unidos" — his English was slipping-"will get Indios to be bandidos against us. It will be the same in the end. For us, it is siempre the same in the end."
How many years of disasters-and how many tumblers of mescal — went into that resignation? Stuart shook his head, which was beginning to throb. "It won't be the same any more. You're in the Confederate States of America now. You're going places, and you'd better believe it."
The only place the alcalde was going was to sleep. His eyes closed. He sagged against the wall and slumped to the ground. Jeb Stuart laughed. Five minutes later, he joined Senor Salazar.
"Well, Colonel," Henry Welton said, "I trust your stay in Fort Benton, and also in Great Falls, has been a pleasant one."
"Yes, sir. Thank you very much," Theodore Roosevelt answered. "Pleasant in ways I couldn't have anticipated when you ordered me down from my regimental headquarters, as a matter of fact."
Colonel Welton grinned a sly grin. "When I ordered you down, you thought you were coming for nothing but work."
"That's true, sir," Roosevelt said, "but it's not precisely what I meant. The usual pleasures of Fort Benton — and even of Great Falls — are easily named: saloons, dance halls, bathtubs with hot water." A couple of other pleasures were easily named, too, but he declined to name them.
"Hot water, yes." Henry Welton nodded. "You do miss it in the field."
But Roosevelt hadn't finished. "As I say, sir, those are the usual pleasures, the commonplace pleasures. Hearing Abe Lincoln speak, though: that I had not looked for, and I expect I'll remember it all my days."
"After he finished, you and he were going at it hammer and tongs there for a while," Henry Welton said. "You made him stop and be thoughtful once or twice, too." He chuckled. "You make everybody you meet stop and be thoughtful, seems to me. Twenty-two-you ought to be illegal."
"Twenty-three soon, sir," Roosevelt said with a grin, which made Welton grimace and mime pathetic decrepitude. Roosevelt went on, "Plainly, Lincoln has a faction that will heed him in all he says. As plainly, there is a large faction that will not heed him in anything he says." He laughed. "He has me speaking like him, even yet-he is a demon on the stump. But both those factions I mentioned have their homes in the Republican Party. It could split on account of him."
"It could split if we lose this war, too," Welton replied, which was plain common sense. "Of course, if we lose this war, not enough men will admit to being Republicans for it to matter much whether the party splits or not."
"These things do matter, sir-they always matter," Roosevelt said seriously. "Look what happened when the Democrats, like Gaul, were divided in partes tres in 1860. Had that not happened, the United States might well be the only nation lying between Canada and the Empire of Mexico."
"Maybe you're right. I'm just a soldier, and soldiers are better off not meddling in politics," Welton said. "If we hadn't already learned that lesson, the War of Secession would have driven it home like a schoolmaster with a hickory switch." He slapped Roosevelt on the back. "Here come the stablehands with your horse, Colonel. Have a safe trip back to the Unauthorized Regiment, and I hope to see you again before too long."
"Likewise, whether here or in the field," Roosevelt said. "And, thanks to your generous permission, I will be sending A Troop here for rest and recreation as soon as I can draft the orders."
"That will be fine," Colonel Welton said. "I do very much approve of an officer who looks out for the well-being of his men."
Roosevelt mounted and rode out of Fort Benton, pausing in the gateway to wave back at Welton. His mount, which had done next to nothing since he'd come down to Fort Benton, felt lively, almost electric, under him. He had to hold the animal under tight rein to keep its trot from exploding into a gallop.
"Easy, old fellow, easy," he said, patting the horse on the neck. "We've got a long road ahead. If you go too fast now, you'll wear yourself down to a nub long before we get there."
The horse didn't want to listen to him. It wanted to run. Roosevelt laughed as the fort disappeared behind a swell of prairie. He was the same way. When anyone told him to slow down, he generally went faster. And not a man in the world had the right to rein him in.
He checked himself. That wasn't quite true. Military discipline did for him what reins did for the horse. Without it, he would have charged into Canada by now. But the cases weren't identical. He'd submitted to military discipline of his own free will. The horse didn't have a choice.
Jackrabbits bounded over the plains, sensibly taking no chances on whether he might try to shoot them if they stayed around to watch him ride by. He didn't need to bother with jackrabbits, not today, not with fresh-baked bread and several chunks of fried chicken in his saddlebag. If he spied a herd of pronghorns on his way north, though..
He saw some antelope off in the distance, but too far off for him to bother chasing them. Welton had sent a courier up to the headquarters of the Unauthorized Regiment, letting Lieutenant Jobst and the rest of the men know he would be spending some time at Fort Benton. He couldn't help feeling he'd been away too long. One thing he emphatically did not want was for his regiment to discover it could get along just as well without him.
Walk, canter, trot. Walk, canter, trot. Mile after mile of prairie unrolled behind him. More miles lay ahead. The horse was still willing, but no longer eager. Roosevelt rode north by the sun and by his compass; not nearly enough horsemen had traveled back and forth between Fort Benton and his headquarters to wear even the beginnings of a trail into the grass. Walk, canter, trot.
Every hour or so, he gave his mount a few minutes' rest and let it snatch at clumps of grass. The grass was still green. It wouldn't stay green forever, nor even much longer. Winter came early to Montana Territory, just as it left late. Blaine had rejected the Confederates' peace offer: well and good. Despite that, though, Roosevelt still hadn't been able to do any fighting. If the damned British didn't get moving, or if his own orders didn't change, he wouldn't be able to start till spring.