Kramer got to his feet and went over to a side door. He pushed it
open, said something I didn't hear, then stepped rather quickly out of
the way.
A moment later young Daniel Boone came out!
* * * * *
Of course, it wasn't really Daniel Boone at all. Leaving out the fact
that the "dark and bloody ground" frontiersman had been dead nearly a
hundred and fifty years, this man was a lot handsomer, with entirely
different features. But he was wearing the fringed buckskin trousers
and shirt, the beaded moccasins, the coonskin cap, and his coarse
black hair hung almost to his shoulders. A powderhorn swung from his
neck by a greasy cord, and he was holding on to a six-foot
muzzle-loader as though it were his only contact with reality.
I stood there with my chin two inches from the rug and gawked at him.
He was scared to death. His deep-set brown eyes rolled fearfully from
side to side, with too much white showing around the irises. His
clutch on the gun grew even tighter, whitening the knuckles of his
hand.
Muscles crawled on my scalp. A strange tension seemed to fill the
room. Kramer cleared his throat. "This man's name is Enoch Wetzel, Mr.
Quinlan. I want him to tell you exactly what he told us earlier
tonight."
I felt the tendons in my legs tighten, pulling me into a slight
crouch. I was back a hundred and seventy years in the past, with a
dull anger starting to move around in me. "Wetzel," I said, making it
sound like a dirty word. "Any relation to Lewis Wetzel?"
* * * * *
The young man's eyes widened with astonishment and obvious relief.
"Well, now, I reckon so! Lew's my uncle."
"Lew Wetzel," I said between my teeth, "is a low, stinking, murdering
skunk!"
I ducked just in time to keep from being brained by the swinging stock
of the long gun. I came up under it quicker than I'd ever moved before
in my life and nailed him on the jaw with a solid right, getting my
shoulder behind it. It was like hitting the Hall of Justice. He
grunted and up came the rifle butt for another try.
Suddenly the room was bulging with strangers. A dozen arms folded
around the young man, the gun was ripped from his fingers and he hit
the rug with a thump that shook the room. The buckskin-covered legs
threshed briefly, then were still.
I moistened my lips and backed away as sanity returned. I looked at
the frozen faces around the table. "My fault, Mr. President. I can't
blame you for thinking I'm as crazy as he is. But, as Mr. Kramer
mentioned, I'm part Indian. Back in the seventeen hundreds a
frontiersman named Lewis Wetzel murdered a lot of Indians--men, women
and children. I suppose you might say I went atavistic, or something,
at hearing this fellow claim he was Wetzel's nephew. He's a screwball,
of course, and I owe you a good solid apology for starting a ruckus."
The President wasn't smiling now. "Perhaps I should have told you
before, Mr. Quinlan, we may desperately need this young man's
assistance in the near future."
I almost blurted out the wrong thing, but bit my lip instead and
remained silent. The President's eyes swung to the heap of humanity on
the floor. "Let him up, boys. I'll call you if I need you again."
The six Secret Service men rose and stood Enoch Wetzel on his feet,
then returned to the adjoining office, not looking too happy about
leaving a madman with the Chief Executive. Wetzel pushed the long hair
off his forehead and stood there glowering at me, spots of angry color
in his dark cheeks.