Chapter 35: Indecision

The crowd stared in disbelief as Buchanan coughed in front of his metal box, then broke into an enthusiastic cheer.

“Hot dang!” Thompson shouted, “It looks like Buchanan has turned his hopeless situation around! Not only has he escaped from Johnson’s terrible grasp, but he’s even managed to lock him away inside a prison of iron!”

Down below, Taft inspected the solid metal walls for a moment, then raised his arm into the air.

“According to the rules of the tournament,” he spoke out to the crowd, “Johnson has three minutes to demonstrate his ability to continue with the match. If he does not, he shall be deemed unable to fight and Buchanan will be declared the winner by default!”

“Shut up!” Johnson screeched from inside the box, “Shut up, all of you! I tell ya, I ain’t out of this yet!”

He slammed into the wall, but the metal cage refused to budge. Johnson clicked his tongue, sitting down as he dug his fingers deep into his shoulders.

“These sons of bitches think they have me in a trap,” he mumbled. “But this ain’t over…not by a goddamn mile…” He banged on the inside of the iron walls. “You hear me! Not by a goddamn mile!”

In the stands, the Jacksonian Party stared out at the battleground below.

“Well, well,” Jade Polk spoke with a whistle, “it seems like the match is all but finished now.”

Andrea Jackson nodded besides her.

“Johnson’s tough, but he ain’t nowhere strong enough to break through those solid, metal walls.”

“To be fair,” Hank Pierce added on, “there’s always the possibility that Johnson’s EP has some sort of secret ability that can get him out of this pinch, but this seems unlikely given what we’ve seen it able to do up until now.”

“It’s a shame, really,” Polk mused. “This match could have been the first win for our Party if we hadn’t been so hasty with kicking Buchanan out all those years ago…” she tilted her head to look at Buchanan down below. “…perhaps we made the wrong decision back then.”

At that, Polk, Pierce, and Jackson collectively tilted their heads as they reflected on their very first interactions with Buchanan.

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

“Welcome!” a young Jade Polk exclaimed as a nervous looking man with a Presidential Seal walked into her office. “You must be Jimmy Buchanan; it’s so very nice to meet you!”

“Y-you too,” Buchanan stammered.

“I’m sure Jackson has already told you by now, but I’ll be in charge of your assignments as you get adjusted to life here in the Party.” She got up, walking to a map hanging on the wall. “And since you used to be a lawyer, I thought we could start you off with a small diplomatic mission.”

She pointed to Oregon.

“We’re finishing up a round of territorial negotiations with a group of Canadians up here, and I want you to be the one representing us.”

“O-O-Oh,” he spoke, “I-I don’t know if that’s a g-g-good idea…”

“There, there,” Polk cooed, placing a hand gently on his back. “I’m sure all of this feels a little overwhelming right now, but I believe in you and your abilities, one hundred percent!”

With that, Buchanan gave a reluctant nod before flying off for his first mission. A week later, Polk came out to check on his progress, finding with some astonishment that the situation remained entirely unchanged since her last visit to the front.

“Well,” Buchanan spoke meekly as he welcomed her arrival, “I came out here…so…so at least that d-d-deed is done…right?”

“That’s…that’s technically true…” Polk replied softly.

She breathed out, regaining the warmth in her expression.

“Well, I can see you’re having some troubles, so how about we go and try this?” She handed over a sealed envelope to Buchanan. “Just tell the Canadians that the terms in this letter are our final offer: take it or leave it. We’ll go on from there.”

Buchanan gave a nod and headed back inside for another round of negotiations.

Polk waited patiently outside the negotiation room with a smile, only to drop her grin as Buchanan came out of the meeting with the unopened letter still held tightly in his hands.

“…why…why do you still have that?” she asked with a stunned expression.

“Oh,” he stammered, “I-I didn’t want to abandon all of the ground I gained so far, so I-I-I decided to leave the letter be.”

“…and what ground is that?” she mumbled to herself.

She shook her head, regaining as much of her composure as she could muster.

“Okay, that’s enough diplomacy for now!” she exclaimed, “Why don’t we try combat next?”

“C-C-Combat?” he squealed.

She nodded.

“We’ve had a few skirmishes pop up around the border with Mexico, and I want you to go lead a battalion to conquer as much land for us as you can.”

With that, Buchanan left for the south. The next week, Polk flew out to Buchanan’s position, only to find that once again, zero progress had been made.

“How are you still at the Rio Grande?” She exclaimed. “You should have made it past here ages ago!”

“O-oh,” he spoke up, “well I just didn’t think it would be a g-good idea to press so deeply into enemy territory.”

Polk tightened up her fists, then released the tension in her arms.

“…how about this?” she spoke as a sword materialized in her hand. “I’ll go and lead the troops myself; you just sit back and watch how things are done. Got it?”

And so, Polk marched on, fighting gallantly against the army of Mexican soldiers standing before her. Before long, Polk managed to press the opposition into offering terms of peace highly in favorable for their Party.

“Fantastic,” Polk said, wiping a band of sweat off her face, “now we can finally stop with all this fighting.”

“We-We could!” Buchanan spoke up. “But…but what if…what if instead of s-s-signing this treaty here…we just conquered all of Mexico instead!”

Polk stared at him, her mouth agape.

“You were the one saying not to press into enemy territory in the first place!” she screeched.

“Eeekkk!” Buchanan shouted, cowering back in fear.

Polk shook her head, grabbing at her brow.

“Sorry,” she muttered, “I…I shouldn’t have shouted like that. Let’s…let’s just head back home, okay?”

From that point on, Polk decided to assign Buchanan only the smallest jobs she could find; ones which would be nearly impossible for him to fumble. She thought that by doing this, her days of agonizing over Buchanan’s actions would surely be over. But alas, she thought wrong…

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Buchanan’s Flashback I. The amount of frustration and indecisiveness showed by Jim Buchanan towards Jade Polk is very close to accurate. James Polk really did give James Buchanan a letter to deliver to the British after he felt the negotiations weren’t going anywhere, which James Buchanan refused to do because he didn’t want to “abandon the ground” he had made thus far (NOTE: I could only find this exact event detailed in the book “Bosom Friends” chapter 5 and I’m not entirely sure whether I correctly interpreted the text around this point, so take this “fact” with a grain of salt).

James Buchanan also wanted to reject a treaty offered by Mexico and to instead fight for more land despite his initial reluctance to push farther, with James Polk hypothesizing that “the true reason of Mr. Buchanan's present course is that he is now a candidate for the Presidency, and he does not wish to incur the displeasure of those who are in favour of the conquest of all Mexico.”