Free Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer

front of him. Sam couldn’t read his expression at all. “What’s your name, son?”
    â€œSamuel A. Damon.”
    â€œAnd you want to go to West Point, do you?”
    â€œThat’s right, sir.”
    â€œYou one of Albert Damon’s boys?”
    â€œNo, sir. He’s my uncle, he lives over in Sheridan Forks. Carl Damon was my father. He died some years ago.”
    â€œOh, yes. I remember.”
    â€œThey never got along very well, my father and my uncle.” Sam felt all at once embarrassed at having said this, and added: “I didn’t know you knew my Uncle Albert.”
    â€œI know a lot of things folks don’t think I do,” Matt Bullen said, and one of the other men laughed. “That’s part of my business. Albert Damon votes the Democratic ticket, don’t he?”
    Sam paused. The room all at once seemed quieter. The other two men had turned in their chairs to watch him.
    â€œYes, sir,” he answered. “My father did, too.”
    Matt Bullen leaned forward on his hands and bit into his cigar. “Son, how old are you?”
    â€œEighteen.”
    â€œYou still got to learn what the world runs on.” He picked up the pencil again and tapped the stiff paper of the map. “Now you give me three good reasons why I ought to recommend the nephew of a man who’s always voted against me, for an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point on the Hudson River.”
    Sam placed his hands behind his back and clasped them tightly. All three men were looking at him now; the Congressman’s face was particularly forbidding. He said in a quiet voice: “Mr. Bullen, when I serve my country as a soldier I’m not going to serve her as a Democrat or as a Republican, I’m going to serve her as an American. To my last breath.”
    Matt Bullen’s expression remained unchanged. “All right. Two.”
    â€œTwo,” Sam echoed. “I’m my own man and not my father’s or my uncle’s. It’s true I can’t vote just yet, but when I do I intend to vote for the best man, regardless of his party. I can promise you that.”
    The Congressman’s eyelid flickered. “Fair enough. Three.”
    â€œThree,” Sam Damon said. He had no idea what he was going to say until he’d said it. “Because I’m the best man you’ll get for the job.”
    Matt Bullen started at that; he threw the pencil on the map again. “That’s a pretty broad statement. You prepared to back it up?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œJust what makes you think so?”
    â€œTry me out, sir. I’ll outhike, outfight, outshoot, outthink any man you can put up. And I know my military history into the bargain.”
    Matt Bullen stared hard at him. “You’re pretty salty for a young fella.”
    The man who had chuckled earlier, a sandy-haired man with a big red nose, said, “You better treat him gently, Matt. He’s the kid that knocked out Big Tim Riley with one punch and never skinned his knuckles.”
    Bullen took the cigar out of his mouth. “He did? Who told you?”
    â€œGeorge Malden,” the red-nosed man said affably. “Said it was all over the county. Said Riley swore he wouldn’t touch another drop of red-eye for a month of Sundays if the kid wouldn’t hit him again.” He said to Sam, “Aren’t you the Damon?”
    Sam hesitated. “Well. I didn’t knock him out …”
    â€œBy thunder, you look as if you could do it, too,” Matt Bullen said as though he hadn’t heard him; he started pacing up and down behind the desk. The red-nosed man looked at Sam and winked solemnly. So it had got here. All the way to Lincoln. That was the way the world was: whatever you did was magnified—if you did something bold you were a hero of Homeric proportions; if you did something cowardly …
    â€œThat’s a mighty