Chapter 4: Letters, Inventions, and Velvet Bags

Back in the mansion, I fired off a letter to the Senator, and another to Mike Dalton.

Lane crushed it in the southern campaign—he captured and released Chief Morgan Hawk seven times, finally winning over the southern tribes.

Just as Lane was about to head home, he got my letter asking him to bring back a few thousand sets of rattan armor. I said I wanted to "play with them."

Lane didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh. How did I even know about rattan armor? Still, it was light, tough, and—besides burning easily—pretty useful. He decided to bring some back for research.

Mike Dalton was drilling volunteers when my order came in: round up two hundred Montana mustangs and bring them to Boise. He figured the horses were for the National Guard anyway, so he started searching.

Don Young, in Boise, was sweating bullets. He was supposed to keep me safe, but I’d run off to the front. How would he explain that to Lane? Now I’d handed him some weird sketches—supposed to be new saddles and stirrups—and told him to find the best blacksmiths. He could only shrug and go with it.

I took stock. The Senator’s plan for the Northern Initiative was always two prongs: Twin Falls and Jackson. But we’d lost Jackson, so only one route left. We couldn’t match Carson’s resources; Idaho’s supply lines were way too long. We needed speed.

That meant a powerful cavalry. The Crow and Blackfeet had the horses; my double-stirrup idea was the secret sauce.

If I could rebuild thirty thousand Black Bear heavy cavalry in a few years, taking the region wasn’t impossible.

But Lane didn’t know I was Thomas Caldwell. He didn’t know what I could really do. Everyone just saw a seventeen-year-old kid in the governor’s chair.

This time, when Lane got back, it was time for a real heart-to-heart. No more hiding behind velvet bags.