Teancum Read Free Page B

been.
    “Jebus,” Coltrane muttered.   “Heaven help Chicago.”
    “Or us,” Rockwell offered.   “There’s no guarantee he’s planning to attack a Gentile city.”
    A pall of silence settled over the carriage.
    The Striders turned north.   They tramped through the foothills above the farms now, so
there weren’t any more ditches or fences to jump or sheds to avoid.   Mule deer scattered at the Striders’
approach, and dog-like creatures that might have been coyotes.
    “What was your offer, then, Mr. Clemens?” Brigham Young
asked.   His voice sounded
deliberately cheerful.
    “Excuse me?”
    “I can guess what the English had to offer,” Young
said.   “And the secessionists, for
that matter—either of them might have offered me land, to the north or
south of my Kingdom, that would have been very valuable.   But I don’t want the Wyoming
Territory.”
    “Who does?”   Sam
agreed.   “But what about Colorado,
with its silver fields?”
    “Is that the Union’s offer, then?” Young asked.   “Join with us to prevent secession, and
you can have the silver of the Rocky Mountains?   Couldn’t I get the same thing from the southern states, in
the event of their victory?”
    “You certainly could,” Sam conceded, “and the victorious
United States could offer you land all the way from St. George to Mexico, so
land promises are cheap.   Which is why
the Union didn’t send me to promise you land.”
    “No?” Rockwell sounded curious.
    “No,” Sam continued, “my offer is one trainload of
fornication pants, sizes to be specified by a duly appointed agent of the
Kingdom.”
    Young snorted, then began to laugh.  
    “I don’t mind fornication pants myself,” Rockwell said,
shrugging, as Young continued to guffaw.   “The buttons up the front make it easier to empty your bladder quick,
and sometimes that can be a real advantage.”
    “Urination trousers.”   Sam grinned, knowing that he was reeling them in.   He was, after all, still on a
diplomatic mission, and when the evening’s crisis was over, whoever was still
standing in the Lion House would have to make a decision about the war.   “Micturition leggings, if you prefer.”
    “Pissing pants!” Rockwell barked, and he started laughing,
too.
    The dwarf just shook his head like he thought everyone
around him was crazy.
    “All pants to be delivered by train to the Great Salt Lake
City,” Sam finished.   He jabbed an
imaginary cigar at Young’s chest for emphasis.   “On the new Transcontinental Railroad, one hundred percent
owned and operated by the Kingdom of Deseret.”
    Young stopped laughing.
    “All land to be provided and all track laid at the expense
of the United States government,” Sam added.   “Along with rolling stock up to five million dollars in
value, complete training in railroad operations for up to two hundred persons
of your choice, and a ten year maintenance guarantee for the entire length of
the track.”
    “President Buchanan really wants me in the war on his side,”
Young observed.
    “President Buchanan really doesn’t want a war at all,” Sam
disagreed.   “And he thinks that the
best way to avoid one is to have the Kingdom of Deseret on his side from the
beginning.”
    “Patrolling the skies over Richmond and Atlanta,” Young
guessed.
    Sam shrugged.   “If need be.   Maybe simple
telegraph messages from you to Richmond and Atlanta would suffice.”
    “The telegraph doesn’t connect to Salt Lake yet,” Young
pointed out.
    “Oh, did I forget that part?” Sam asked coyly.   “Of course we’d connect the Great Salt
Lake City to the American telegraph network very first.   I’m told it could be done in a matter
of mere weeks.”
    Young was silent for a minute.   Sam leaned into the cool dry air of the night, feeling his
hair ruffle and imagining himself as the victorious figurehead on the prow of a
mighty ship of state.
    “Your gift is something of a Trojan horse,” Young