by Ron Schwab
“They’re here,” she said, in a near whisper. “One’s an Indian, probably Lakota. Braided hair, which you don’t see so much these days. A chunky, older guy. The other looks like a dandy. Shirt and tie. Fancy shoes and a fedora hat. Kind of dressed up for an outing out here. A little on the skinny side, olive skin and sort of oily-looking. Dad would call him a ‘wop.’ Could these folks be friends of yours?”
“Your descriptions tell me nothing, but I don’t suppose I would be acquainted with anyone who might be stalking me. An Indian and Italian seem a strange combination for such a task.”
“You’re not a gangster or anything, are you? The Italians are mixed up in the mobs, according to the newspapers.”
“No, I’m not a gangster. I suppose I had better come clean, as they say. I’m the president.”
“Of what?”
“The United States.”
“And I’m Queen Victoria.” She heard the pursuers’ voices and cautiously looked out of the cave’s entrance. “The scrawny guy has spotted the cave, and he’s at the bottom of the slope.” She positioned her Winchester against her shoulder and poked the barrel out of the cave opening, holding her fire until she was certain the man was going to approach the cave. She had him lined up in her rifle’s sights, but she had never fired at a man before, and she did not know for certain he meant her or Uncle Cal harm. No, she could not shoot him down without warning.
She waited patiently. The Italian-looking man called to the Indian. “George, get your ass over here. I think there’s a cave up this hill, and it looks like fresh scuff marks on the dirt.”
The Indian splashed across the stream, stumbling, and falling to his knees when he clambered up the bank. He got back up and moved on like a clumsy bear, she thought. He bent over to catch his breath when he reached his companion.
The Italian said, “Up there.” He pointed to where Uncle Cal and she were hiding.
“You need to climb up there and check it out.”
“Why me?”
“You’re the Indian. It’s your job to sneak up on people.”
“Go to hell. Do it yourself.”
The stalkers did not seem to be over-endowed with courage. She questioned just how persistent they would be. She aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger. The rifle cracked, the echo in the cave stinging her ears, as her bullet tore through the Italian’s fedora. She placed three more shots at their feet, kicking up rocks and gravel. The Indian was already backtracking as fast as his stubby legs would carry him. His partner raced after him ten paces back but gaining ground. The men displayed no inclination to regroup and continue their assault, but she decided they should wait a spell. She did not want to surrender the little fortress until she was certain they were in the clear. Besides, she needed to figure out what to do with her companion. She felt she had taken on responsibility for this man, even though she was not certain he knew his onions.
“They’re gone?” Uncle Cal asked.
“It appears so. I don’t think they’ll be back, but we should wait a spell to be certain. Then I need to get home. I guess you’ll have to ride with me.” She looked at him dubiously. “Have you ever been on a horse?”
“Yes. Not often in recent years, but, as I said, I’m a farm boy. I used to ride bareback.”
“That’s good, because you’ll have to ride behind me.”
“Oh my.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure that’s very seemly.”
This guy was trying her patience. “I guess if you can handle the reins, you can have the front seat.”
“I think I would be more comfortable with that.”
“Now, I think we’d better get better acquainted. I am Kate Connolly. My father is Owen Connolly. He’s a rancher and owns this place. It’s called the Shamrock Ranch. I’m a college student at South Dakota State, home for the summer and maybe for good, if I have my way.”
“Very well. I was quite certain you were not Queen Victoria, since she is long deceased. I was born John Calvin Coolidge. My late father bore the same name, and he was a farmer, justice of the peace and jack-of-all-trades at Plymouth Notch, Vermont. I am currently employed as president and am spending my summer at the State Game Lodge in South Dakota. Alas, I will not have my way, and I will be returning to Washington at summer’s conclusion.”
It struck her then. The fisherman was not demented. He was the president. She had read that President Coolidge would be spending the summer in the Black Hills and that he and his entourage would be taking over the State Game Lodge. Oh my God.
“I don’t know what to say. I had no idea. I feel like such a fool. I’m sorry, Mr. President.”
The president chuckled, “Please, Kate. Let me be Uncle Cal, at least in private. You likely saved my life today. My Secret Service protection was somehow taken out. The man you saw assaulted was Harvey Woods. Agent Styles was posted at the road entrance. I fear for his well-being. Edmund is going to be outraged over this breakdown, if he does not first suffer a heart attack when he learns I am missing.”
“Edmund?”
“Edmund Starling. He’s head of the Secret Service detail that came with me to South Dakota. A serious man, who does his job very proficiently. But he does not take it well when life does not follow his script, as it rarely does for any of us.”
“Well, I think our best bet is still to ride to the Shamrock home place. There is a telephone there, and we can contact the State Game Lodge and let somebody know where you’re at. I’ll warn you, though, we’re on a party line and half the county will know where you’re at before the day’s out. I know Grandma Beth will be thrilled to have you at the house. She voted for you, I’m sure. I’m worried about Dad, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what he’ll think about me dragging home a Republican.” She smiled at the thought.
“Your father’s a Democrat, I take it.”
“Yes. He says every good Irishman has a ‘D’ stamped on his butt at birth. Pardon my French.”
“Well, when I was elected Governor of Massachusetts, I ran very well in Boston’s Irish precincts. I daresay there were a few good Irishman who did not get stamped. I look forward to meeting your father and promise not to talk politics.”
Chapter 3
TREY
The first lady entered the room in the State Game Lodge that had been set aside for budget work. When she appeared, I was hunched over the table with my tin crank adding machine, trying to make sense of the budget for the Department of Agriculture. I stood immediately. This was not my job, but I was sort of a guest of President and Mrs. Coolidge during my assignment in South Dakota and could not refuse the president’s request to help with budget matters during time I was not otherwise occupied.
Grace Coolidge was a ritzy lady in her late forties and looked a decade younger. I had something of a crush on her, and I could not understand what enamored her so with her husband. She was cheerful and vivacious. The press called him “Silent Cal,” a moniker well-earned, and I had never heard him cut loose with a good old belly laugh. It was a challenge to draw out a smile. That’s not to say he was without a sense of humor. In fact, he had the quickest, driest wit I had ever encountered, and he often had a twinkle in his eye. But he had a knack for confounding both friend and detractor.
“The president is late. We were to have lunch at one o’clock.”
“Perhaps the fishing is good.”
“But one of the agents should have reported in. Edmund is not pleased.”
I would never say it aloud, but Edmund Starling, the Secret Service agent-in-charge was never pleased. I think his undershorts were too snug and pinched his privates. “Well, I’m certain Edmund has everything under control, and the president will be here shortly.”
Mrs. Coolidge pushed aside a chair across the table from me and sat down without giving me time to assist. “Sit down, Trey. I would like to chat.”
I complied. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I imagine he is really looking forward to the occasion.”
“You know better, Trey. He’d rather go fishing or read . . . or work on the budget. But he will not. I have planned several days of Black Hills experiences.”
“I suspect my grandparents will have to decline the invitation. Gramps is getting up in years. He’s a few years short of eighty and looks it. Gram Skye’s six or seven years younger, but you’d never guess she is past seventy.”
“I have good news. They’ve already accepted. You forget, they visited the White House in March. They both were fit as a pair of fiddles. You are just seeing your grandfather from a young man’s perspective.”
This could not be happening to me.
“You don’t seem excited about the news.”
“Well, I do have an assignment here, and I don’t know that I can take off to spend much time with them. And Gramps and I have something of a testy relationship these days.”
“I cannot imagine why. You are such an easy-going young man. Calvin loves to spend time with the senator, and I adore Skye. You must make time to patch up any differences with your grandfather.” She stood. “We’ll talk again. Perhaps, you can tell me what kinds of activities your grandparents might enjoy.”
She flew out of the room like a lovely butterfly, carrying my heart with her. I was grateful for her exit, however. I did not wish to be the one to tell her Gramps would rather spend his time fishing with the president. Everybody might be happier if the first lady and Gram Skye took on the social schedule together and left their spouses at the State Game Lodge. The unwary husbands, of course, had no choice but to surrender.
I ended up with the presidential party on this journey indirectly because of political connections. My full name is Ethan James Ramsey III, hence “Trey.” My father was “Deuce” Ramsey. Gramps must have still had a sense of humor when he tagged Dad with that nickname. Major Ethan James Ramsey II was an infantry officer killed in action by the Krauts. He’s buried in France. Gramps and Gram, accompanied by my mother, Zoe, crossed the Atlantic and visited his grave five years back. I declined to make the trip. I don’t know why. Maybe I’ll go someday, but it seems rather pointless to self-inflict additional wounds.
My father, Deuce, was a West Pointer and a career soldier. With the likelihood the politicians would stir up another war or two, he was destined for at least a star or two. He was thirty-seven when his life ended in 1917, a dozen years older than I am now. I worshipped my father. I wonder sometimes if that would have changed if I had not lost him and learned more of his humanness as the years passed. It doesn’t matter; those years won’t pass for him.
Gramps, of course, is the first Ethan—Senior, if you will. I love and respect him. And I don’t know how to deal with him. There is a stiffness in our relationship. He’s a lawyer-rancher near Lockwood, Wyoming, but Gram Skye has always run the ranching operation. Skye dePaul Ramsey is half-blood Brule Sioux. Her father was a French trader. Gramps was a scout for the cavalry out of Fort Laramie during the Indian wars, and Gram says the Sioux called him the Puma for his skill in stalking his quarry, usually Indians, I guess. He still moves silently and with considerable grace. He is far from decrepit, as I may have intimated to Mrs. Coolidge. When a United States Senator from Wyoming died six or seven years ago, Gramps, who was a political supporter of the governor, was appointed to fill the interim vacancy, serving only six months before a successor was elected. He had no interest in seeking election to the unexpired term.
It was during his Senate service that Gramps became a fast friend of then Vice-President Coolidge, who resided with Mrs. Coolidge and their sons in a Washington hotel. Mrs. Coolidge and Gram hit it off instantly, and despite a generation’s age difference, formed their own enduring friendship. The relationship seemed to tighten after the Coolidges lost their own son three years ago. Calvin Junior died at age fifteen as the result of a bacterial infection invading a blister incurred in a tennis game on the White House lawn.
Mrs. Coolidge returned to the budget room fifteen minutes after she departed. Her face was pale, and her eyes glistened with tears. I was not accustomed to seeing her in a distressed state. Calm, composed and cheerful constituted her usual demeanor. I stood and stepped toward her. “What is it?”
“Someone tried to assassinate the president,” she replied, before falling into my arms.
I said nothing, and I must confess I savored those few seconds. The waft of her perfume. The closeness of her body. I can be a despicable rogue when it comes to women, and the first lady is a bona fide Sheba. She is even more attractive because she seems unaware of her effect on men, especially me. At the same time, I was uneasy. What does one do with his hands with the first lady in his arms? I certainly couldn’t pat her shapely fanny.
“But the president is all right?” I asked. Sorry, I am rarely articulate with a lovely woman in my arms.
She pulled back and seemed to pull herself together. “He is apparently fine. His Secret Service agents were injured, but not fatally. Mr. Starling is outraged. He has already arranged to send the men back to Washington and called for additional agent support. He is fuming, of course.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“Only that he was rescued by a cowgirl, of all things. He’s with her family at a place called the Shamrock Ranch about ten miles from here. Edmund wants to send two cars for him in case extra protection is needed. Edmund will take Agent Quinton with him. He would like to have you ride with Mr. Caputo.”
I was not Secret Service, but I could not deny this woman. Besides, I was an agent with the Bureau of Investigation—the BOI or BI. Pick your acronym. My boss, J. Edgar Hoover, who was appointed by the president a few years ago to head the agency, would be pissed if I didn’t nose in to whatever was going on here. He would probably figure out a way to wrest control over any investigation from the Secret Service anyway. He was one hell of a political strategist. Also, I was not unmindful that he made a job for me when Gramps sent an inquiry his way.
I was grateful to be riding with Frank Caputo to retrieve the missing president. Frank, who might have reached five and a half feet on his tiptoes, was a stocky, swarthy Italian, with a smile that melted the ladies’ hearts. In his late thirties, he appeared to be a confirmed bachelor, but I am certain he slept alone only when on assignment. He looked and spoke like a guy from the Chicago mob. I suspected he could kill with the same ease. A good man to cover your backside.
I was equally thankful not to be accompanying Quinton Q. Quinton. I never asked what the middle initial stood for. He was a prude with zero sense of humor. Some called him a bluenose. I called him an asshole, but not to his face. Grudgingly, I admitted he was a more than competent agent.
Regardless, I hoped we could make this a quick trip. I was scheduled to meet with a fellow BI agent in Rapid City tonight to tend to the real business that had brought me to the Black Hills.
Chapter 4
TREY
The rock and gravel road that led to the Shamrock Ranch twisted deep into the foothills that framed the higher, more mountainous reaches of what folks knew as the Black Hills. The present-day park lands were sacred to the Sioux, and my ancestors owned this part of South Dakota several generations back, first by right of occupancy and, later, by treaty when the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington decided it was all a big chunk of worthless rock. Then, prospectors discovered gold and the hills were ultimately opened to white settlement. As a consolation prize, the Sioux, particularly the Lakota, ended up with the Pine Ridge Reservation spanning miles of untillable wastelands across southern South Dakota and northern Nebraska. My Brule ancestors, along with the Lakota, Hunkpapa and several other sub-tribes are Lakota. I don’t know if my twelve and one-half percent Sioux blood entitled me to set up a shack on the reservation or not. These productive grassl
ands are, of course, outside the reservation.
I didn’t know what the acres to cow-calf grazing ratio is in this part of country, but I soaked in some sense of pasturing rates when we lived on the Ramsey Lazy R spread after my father’s death. A rancher could run a lot of cows on this range. I surmised we were threading our ways through Shamrock land right now, and it seemed these folks had settled on Black Angus. Gram Skye was firmly committed to Herefords.
When we arrived at the Shamrock Ranch headquarters, it was almost like coming onto a village that had been swallowed up by the surrounding shortgrass foothills. Clustered in a bowl-like setting were three houses, including a large ranch house, a bunkhouse, a huge barn, an apparent separate stable, a chicken coop and a collection of assorted outbuildings. Twenty or so people were gathered near the ranch house, so Starling led our duo of Model T Fords toward the activity. Nobody seemed much interested in our arrival.
As we got out of our vehicles, I caught sight of the president sitting back in a lawn chair and munching on a pastry. He gave me a small wave, and I was surprised to see traces of a pleased smile on his lips. He seemed unfazed by the aborted assassination attempt.
There were some small children playing tag in the dusty ranch yard. Adults of varying ages, the men wearing scuffed cowboy boots and battered hats, sat at a nearby picnic table or in the weathered chairs and benches scattered around the president. From the vehicles parked in the yard, I assumed some of these folks were neighbors invited over to see a genuine live president.
As usual, the president appeared to be doing more listening than talking. As I drew nearer, I noticed a barrel-chested man with curly white hair and a matching brushy moustache good-naturedly scolding the president for vetoing the McNary-Haugen farm bill earlier in the year. The bill had been supported by his fellow Republicans, but Calvin Coolidge said it cost too much and interfered with the free market. The president responded by asking if he might have another glass of lemonade.