（外文电子版资料）Joe Haldeman - Manifest Destiny.pdf

MANIFEST DESTINY This is the story of John Leroy Harris, but I doubt that name means much to you unless youre pretty old, especially an old lawman. Hes dead anyhow, thirty years now, and nobody left around that could get hurt with this story. The fact is, I wouldve told it a long time ago, but when I was younger it would have bothered me, worrying about what people would think. Now I just dont care. The hell with it. Ive been on the move ever since I was a lad. At thirteen I put a knife in another boy and didnt wait around to see if he lived, just went down to the river and worked my way to St. Louis, got in some trouble there and wound up in New Orleans a few years later. Thats where I came to meet John Harris. Now you wouldnt tell from his name (hed changed it a few times) but John was pure Spanish blood, as his folks had come from Spain before the Purchase. John was born in Natchitoches in 1815, the year of the Battle of New Orleans. That put him thirteen years older than me, so I guess he was about thirty when we met. I was working as a greeter, what we called a bouncer, in Mrs. Carranzas whorehouse down by the docks. Mostly I just sat around and looked big, which I was then and no fat, but sometimes I did have to calm down a customer or maybe throw him out, and I kept under my weskit a Starr pepperbox derringer in case of real trouble. It was by using this weapon that I made the acquaintance of John Harris. Harris had been in the bar a few times, often enough for me to notice him, but to my knowledge he never put the boots to any of the women. Didnt have to pay for it, I guess; he was a handsome cuss, more than six feet tall, slender, with this kind of tragic look that women seem to like. Anyhow it was a raw rainy night in November, col