Pack could think of no suitable grounds for refusal. He rode along southward with the four-eyed dude. To cover his confusion he said, “Now, the Republicans seem in serious disarray. What do you think?”
“Don’t ask me about politics. I’m out of that. I’ve far more interest in the coming round-up than in politics—the round-up’s far more respectable.”
Theodore Roosevelt, political apostate. Pack wondered if the ridiculous man realized how pompous he appeared, all decked out in his pretense to have cornered the market on moral absolutes.
But then, to be perfectly honest, was that any worse than going along from day to day like a mere witness, devoid of the passionate commitments of involvement? Pack daily threw himself with increasing resentment against the bars of his cage of inaction. He saw everything; he participated in nothing. It seemed life had not begun for him yet. He was nothing but a spectator. Nothing serious will ever happen to me, he complained to himself.
Howard Eaton’s front yard was decorated with chunks of petrified logs, cold to the touch.
Wolves had been taking down livestock. Some of the ranchers had organized a Dakota version of an ancient tradition: a rugged frontier interpretation of a fox hunt, with grey wolves as the prey. In place of red coats the hunters wore whatever seemed practical. A.C. Huidekoper kept a pack of wolfhounds he’d imported all the way from Imperial Russia, and on these high social occasions they were set loose to lead the spirited horsemen at breakneck pace across the Bad Lands.
This time the crowd was swelled by a dozen visiting Eastern sportsmen. Most of them seemed bemused; but the local hunters were in foul spirits because some practical joker had found out where Huidekoper planned to start his wolf hunt, and had dragged the skin of a fresh-killed wolf from that spot directly back to Eaton’s well. The hounds had led the crowd directly home to the well, where Pack and Roosevelt arrived to find the hunters dismounted and crowded around. A few bloody claws had been found at the rim and a man had to be lowered into the well. Now he climbed out and shook his head; he’d found nothing amiss at the bottom.
A wrangler came out of the barn with a shamefaced countenance. “There’s a wolf hide in the loft. All tore up and dusty. Better not bring it down here while those dogs around.”
Huidekoper—a squire out of Fielding—assisted his handlers in pulling the dogs away from the well; he said, “This has Jerry Paddock’s stamp on it.”
Pack said, “Now, I doubt that. Jerry has no sense of humor.”
“The man who did this has no sense of humor,” Huidekoper retorted, and stamped into the Custer Trail ranch house, undoubtedly to proceed directly to the bar.
Pack watched with satisfaction and amusement when two of the boys asked Roosevelt if he’d like to help out with the acorn harvesting. The dude fell for it, fool that he was. Huidekoper came out of the house with a drink. He and Pack trailed along at a discreet distance when the boys took Roosevelt to the pigpen and handed him a long stout pole. “Now you pole the hogs with this …”
“What the devil has this got to do with harvesting acorns?”
“Well sir, everybody knows pigs just love acorn shells. Now you just take that pole and stick it up the pig’s hind end and hold him up so he can reach the acorns …”
Roosevelt blinked rapidly, then after a long interval burst into a hearty peal of laughter that struck Pack as being embarrassingly false. “By George, you fellows nearly had me there!”
Huidekoper took Pack away. “Haven’t we had enough cruel joking? Arthur, you might show more tolerance to the Easterner. We all were Easterners once. He’s only, what, twenty-four years old?”
Pack said, “Around here that’s a full-seasoned age for a man.”
“Is that so,” Huidekoper said dryly. “And how old are you, my friend?”
They moved toward the house. Pack glimpsed Roosevelt beyond the side of the barn—bent over, coughing ferociously, evidently retching. Feeling a snarling contempt, Pack followed Huidekoper inside.
These northern summer days were long but finally shadows invaded the tortured folds of the land. Pack made his way through the gathering in Eaton’s front room, helping to light the lamps. Through one window he saw a three-quarter moon floating low on the horizon.
The door came open and Deacon W.P. Osterhaut insinuated himself. No one had invited him but he always seemed to know when gatherings were to take place; he seldom failed to impose his undesired presence. He was a short man with a plump stomach, a fat shrewish wife and a marked Southern accent, having served in the Rebel army during the war. Pack heard him talking to a rancher named Pierce Bolan. Osterhaut said, “I hear little Roosevelt there had a run-in with savages and saved the lives of his men by putting on a shooting exhibition that impressed the barbarians. He must be a crack shot.”
Pack said, “Who told you that yarn, Deacon? It wasn’t Roosevelt. It was one of his hired hands. Wilmot Dow.” He’d written up the story for next week’s paper. He’d heard it first from the Maine woodsman Sewall and this afternoon, riding out here, he had asked Roosevelt to confirm it.
Pack poured himself a cup of beer from the keg—the Eatons always had an endless supply—and heard Huidekoper buttonhole Roosevelt nearby. “Theodore, I want your advice.” Evidently both Huidekoper and Howard Eaton were permitted to call Roosevelt by his first name. It was a club Pack felt no urgent wish to join.
Mrs. Eaton was at the door welcoming another newcomer. “You’ve come just in time. Supper’s on the table.”
Howard Eaton came curling past Pack with his customary big smile. Eaton clapped Huidekoper on the shoulder and said to Roosevelt, “It’s too long a ride back to your place. Of course you’ll stay here the night.”
“My thanks for your kindness, but you seem to have a full house of visiting sportsmen.”
“Nonsense. We enjoy company—more than anything.”
“Thank you again, but I’ve arranged to stay in town.”
“In the De Morès Hotel?”
“In Joe Ferris’s spare room above the store.” Roosevelt smiled with a display of teeth that reminded Pack not favorably of a gopher. “I haven’t the nerve to join the horde of your friends who’ve availed themselves of the Eaton hospitality until they’re in danger of losing their self-respect.”
“You make a witticism of it,” Howard Eaton replied, “but we’ve got too many friends who refuse our hospitality for just that reason.”
Roosevelt said, “Then why don’t you make ‘dude-ranching’ a business?”
“Charge money?”
“Don’t be horrified, old fellow. Your friends will jump at the chance to enjoy your hospitality without feeling they’re taking unfair advantage.”
“Well I don’t think—”
Roosevelt said, “Guides and hunters charge for their services. Hotelkeepers charge. No one faults them for it. Without the fair exchanges of honest commerce, few of us would survive.”
Quick interest brightened Eaton’s face. “Food for thought,” he said. “You may have something. Yes, by George, you may have something there, Theodore. We’ll discuss it among ourselves.”
Huidekoper ran a hand across his bald pate. “I feel a need to air a few topics myself—such as the troubles caused by the Marquis’s fences and sheep. We live in an isolated village. What affects one affects all. I believe the time has arrived for consideration of the formation of a committee of vigilance.”
Pack tipped the point of his shoulder against the wall and listened without overwhelming interest. Whenever Huidekoper began talking, the promise was one of lengthy and prudent and rarely fascinating discourse.
Perhaps knowing Huidekoper well enough by now, Roosevelt nipped it quickly. “We don’t need vigilantes. We need a stockmen’s association, so that difficulties and disputes may be settled by a civilized vote among ranchmen, rather than by the present everyman-for-himself chaos.”
Pack saw nothing wrong with the sentiment but he found himself resenting the cocksuredness with which Roosevelt presented it and the rude speed with which he had interrupted Huidekoper, and the ill-mannered haste with which he now changed the subject: “I come to another matter now. Perhaps it’s already been discussed amongst some of you. We ranchmen must organize a round-up for the fall.”