Chapter 19: Yellow Brick Road

“GAHHHH!” LBJ howled as McKinley cut into his chest with his axe.

LBJ gritted his teeth through the roaring pain as he gave a hard shove to McKinley’s shoulders, separating the two of them before leaping away even further. LBJ slowed his breathing, shifting his gaze back to McKinley’s severed arm on the floor.

“No blood?” he murmured, studying the situation with greater care as his face twisted into a scowl, “…is that…an artificial limb?”

Hayes broke into a hearty belly laugh from the stands.

“Right you are!” she cooed, “He gave up his real one a long time ago…”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Our soldiers are starving out there!” a young McKinley shouted to his superior officer. “We need to go and get them some food right now!”

“Sorry kid,” the officer replied with a shake of his head, “it’s just too risky to try.”

McKinley clenched his fists, nodding as he slumped back into camp.

“…they didn’t bite,” McKinley lamented to the large, hairy man standing beside him. “I asked two officers for permission to go, and both of them shut me down.”

Marcus Hanna scratched his chin with a frown.

“So, you’re giving up then?”

McKinley looked to the battle raging on just outside their camp; the horrendous screams of both cannons and men audible even from here.

“…no,” he finally spoke, “I know it’s reckless of me…but I have to go…I just can’t stay back and wait while our comrades go on and suffer!”

“You truly are a simple man, McKinley…” Hanna said before thumping a fist into his chest, “but I suppose that makes me one as well! For wherever you decide to go, I shall be with you every step of the way!”

“Thanks, Hanna,” McKinley smiled. “Now, let’s get our stuff together; we don’t have a single moment to lose!”

“Way ahead of you: the two of us have been loading supplies the whole time you’ve been out seeking approval.”

“The two of us?” McKinley asked. “Who do you mean by that? Why, I can’t think of anyone besides you who would be crazy enough to take part in a scheme like this.”

“You aren’t thinking very hard, then” Hanna chuckled, pointing to a woman loading up a crate of food onto a wagon before them.

“…you’ve got to be kidding,” McKinley muttered, walking to the woman with a look of concern.

“Hello, dear,” Iris McKinley spoke as her husband approached, “would you be a peach and throw that last box of supplies into our carriage?”

“Darling,” McKinley spoke carefully, “surely…surely you’re not actually planning on coming with us, right? We’re heading into enemy fire, and—”

“And nothing!” she said, bopping at McKinley’s nose. “If you can handle it honey, then so can I! Moreover,” she said, gesturing to the ruby red slippers on her feet, “you’ll be needing my Artifact to get back home if things go south.”

McKinley looked at his wife, then back to Hanna. He shook his head, rubbing his fingers into his forehead.

“…alright you knuckleheads…” he said with a smile, “…let’s do this!”

The group finished loading the last of their crates, then charged through camp with their wagon.

“Hey!” one of the officers shouted as the group road past, “Stop!”

McKinley gave a slight smile as he struck at the reigns, propelling his horses to even greater speeds as they burst through camp and onto the open battlefield.

The trio rode on with great daring, traveling at breakneck speeds through a terrific fire of musketry and artillery. After much turmoil and turbulation, the group finally made it past the enemy’s bombardment and onto a quiet, yellow brick road.

“Phew,” Iris spoke from inside the wagon, “looks like we made it through the worst of things!”

“I sincerely hope so,” Hanna remarked from the front seat as he looked to his pocket watch. “We’ll need to pick up the pace if we want to—"

McKinley suddenly shoved Hanna off of the wagon. As he did, a silver spike shot out from the neighboring forest and into the carriage where Hanna had just been seated. McKinley stared into the nearby trees, groaning as a familiar figured stepped out of the brush.

“Oh Lord,” McKinley groaned, “it’s [The Wicked Will of the West]…”

“[The Silver Knight of the West]!” Will Bryan corrected as he walked towards them. “You ought to at least remember the epitaph of your greatest rival!”

“We aren’t rivals,” McKinley grumbled, “and we don’t have time to waste on your petty antics right now!”

“Oh yeah?” Bryan said with a snarl, “Well, too bad!”

Bryan pulled out a silver whistle from his pocket and blew into its mouthpiece. At its signal, a group of several dozen soldiers rose out of the surrounding woodwork and stepped onto the yellow brick road.

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McKinley Flashback I. William McKinley made a daring supply run during the Civil War to a group of soldiers cut off from supplies. Two of William’s superior officers insisted that William abandon his plans due to the fact that his route was across a field controlled under Confederate fire. William went on anyways, miraculously making it through with only part of his wagon blown off from a stray cannonball.

None of the characters depicted here (i.e. his wife Ida McKinley, Marcus Hanna, nor William Jennings Bryan) were involved with this supply run. These extra characters were added so that this flashback could better parallel the novel “The Wizard of Oz,” which itself was written as an allegory about the gold standard crisis, which was a big topic issue between William McKinley and Williams Jennings Bryan during the election of 1896.