Excellency, can you not act as a disinterested statesman and serve with a whole heart the needs of your country? You have the chance, Mr. President, and a rare chance it is for an elected official, to do just that without considering your own future political advantage, for you can have none.'
Had Blaine not been in the room, Schlieffen might have smiled. Schlozer could not have urged a more sensible, more logical course on the president of the United States. The only question remaining was whether sense and logic could still reach James G. Blaine.
Schlieffen added a few words of his own: 'If you do not do this, Your Excellency, your country will only suffer more. In your heart, you must know this is so.'
Again, Blaine stayed silent a long time. At last, very low, he repeated, 'You may be right.' He let out a long, shuddering sigh. 'Making peace with the enemies of my country is like looking into my open grave. But, as you say, I am already dead, so what does it matter how I am buried?'
'Think of your country,' Schlozer said.
'Think of the future, and what your country and mine may do there,' Schlieffen said. Slowly, Blaine nodded.
Philander Snow spat a brown stream into a drift of the stuff whose name he bore. Theodore Roosevelt had changed the calendar from March to April a couple of days before. He'd seen spring snow in New York State; seeing it in Montana Territory did not delight him, but it did not surprise him, either.
His mind had a way of running toward what would be. 'We've got to plant as soon as we can, Phil,' he said. 'We shan't have a long growing season-we never do, not here, but it will be even shorter this year. Everything must be in readiness to move the moment conditions permit.'
Snow spat again. 'It will be, Colonel.' He'd taken to calling Roosevelt that since his boss' return from commanding the Unauthorized Regiment. Having been mustered out of the U.S. Army, Roosevelt no longer had any formal right to the title. The next time he corrected the ranch hand about it would be the first.
'That's good, Phil. That's what I want to hear,' he said, now, adding, for about the hundredth time, 'I know I can rely on you. If I'd ever had any doubts-which I haven't-the way you and the rest of the hands who didn't join my regiment brought in the harvest last fall would have shot them right between the eyes.'
'That's white of you, Colonel. We reckoned it was the least we could do, seein' how you and the Unauthorized Regiment was doin' everything you could to keep them goddamn English bastards from comin' down and burnin' us out.' Snow loosed yet another stream of tobacco juice. 'Ask you somethin'?'
'You may ask,' Roosevelt said. 'I don't promise to answer.'
'Fair enough.' Snow nodded. 'All kinds of talk been goin' around about how you'll up and sell this here ranch and go back to New York to do some politicking there. Is it so, or is it a pile of humbug?'
'I'd love to go back to New York and politic there,' Roosevelt answered. 'The only trouble with the notion is that, in order to run for the State Assembly, I must have attained the twenty-fifth year of my age. I am old enough to have fought for my country and to have commanded men in battle, but not old enough to help legislate for my state.'
'Plumb crazy, you ask me,' Philander Snow opined. ' 'Course, nobody asked me.'
'Crazy it may be,' Roosevelt said. 'The law of the state it is. And so I shall stay here in Montana Territory, here on the ranch, a while longer, at any rate.' He did his best to speak lightly, as if that mattered to him only a little. Inside, he seethed with worry lest the fickle populace forget him before he reached the age where he could offer himself for approval.
'Well, I'm powerful glad to hear that,' Snow said. 'Powerful glad. I've been pleased with my situation here, and I'd hate to have to go looking for another one on account of you was sellin' the place for no better reason than to go back East and tell lies to people the rest of your days.'
'Is that what politics means to you?' Roosevelt demanded. The ranch hand nodded without hesitation. Roosevelt 's sigh loosed a cloud of steam into the chilly air. 'I give you my solemn word: I shall always tell the truth to the people.'
'I've heard a lot of people say that.' Snow spoke in ruminative tones. 'Maybe you're telling the truth, Colonel. I hope to Jesus you are, matter of fact. But it wouldn't startle me out of my stockings if I found out you wasn't.'
'I shall always tell the truth to the people,' Roosevelt repeated. 'Always. Do not doubt me on this, Phil; I mean every word I say. You are right when you assert that the American people have already heard too many lies.'
Snow cocked his head to one side and studied Roosevelt for a while before saying, 'It's a young man's promise, Colonel. Maybe there's a reason a fellow has got to be twenty-five before he can run after all. You get older, you figure out there's a deal of gray between black and white.'
'A man who will see gray once will see gray all the time.' Theodore Roosevelt scornfully tossed his head. 'A man who sees gray will never see black, nor white either, even when they are there. That, I think, defines your run-of-the-mill politician to a T. I may be a politician one day-I would be lying if I said I didn't fancy the notion-but, whatever else history may record of me, it shall never say I was run-of-the-mill.'
Philander Snow gave him another measuring appraisal, punctuating it by putting another brown spot in the white by his feet. 'I don't reckon anyone will call you that. Some other things, maybe, but not that one there.'
'I hope no one does,' Roosevelt said. 'Even those who were great in their time are so easily forgotten. Who now recalls the deeds of Lysander the Spartan or Frederick Barbarossa?'
'Not me, that's for damn sure,' Snow said at once.
'Just so,' Roosevelt said. 'Just so. I want my name to live, to be a possession for all time.' Phil wouldn't have heard of Thucydides, either, so Roosevelt didn't bother explaining where he'd got that last phrase. But, even if the ranch hand hadn't heard of him, a lot of what the Greek historian had to say about the war between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century before Christ could as readily have been written about the modern struggles between the USA and the CSA. Just as Sparta had got aid from rich Persia against Athens, which otherwise was probably the stronger, so the Confederate States had used help from England and France to put down the United States, which alone was the larger, richer, and more populous of the two.
Snow said, 'Good shootin' the breeze with you, boss. I'm headin' off to check on the stock.' He trudged down toward the barn, his boots crunching as each step broke the crust on the latest snowfall.
Roosevelt went inside to catch up on the bookkeeping. No sooner had he got to work than dark clouds rolled across the sun. He lighted a lamp in the study. A few minutes later, it went dry, filling the room with the stink of kerosene. When he went to put more into it, he discovered the ranch house was almost out.
He went to the door and shouted for Philander Snow. Eventually, Snow stuck his head out of the barn. When Roosevelt asked him if there was any kerosene in there, the ranch hand answered, 'Sure as hell ain't. We should have bought some the last time the Handbasket went down to Helena, only we forgot.'
'Damnation,' Roosevelt muttered. 'None in the hands' quarter, either?'
'Sure as hell ain't,' Snow repeated. 'Oh, maybe enough for a day or two, you spread it out amongst there and the barn and the ranch house. But maybe not even that much, neither.'
'Damnation,' Roosevelt said again. Then he brightened. 'Well, hitch up the horses to the Handbasket. We'll just have to go down to Helena again and get some.' Any excuse to get into town, even his own absentmindedness, was a good one as far as he was concerned. Here on the ranch, he was feeling isolated again. The year before, he'd been part of great events. Now, unless he went down to Helena, he didn't even know about them till long after they happened-not till someone chanced to bring word up to the ranch.
Thinking along with him, Snow said, 'We got the chance to find out what in hell's gone wrong the past few days. Swear to Jesus, sometimes I laugh till I'm like to bust, listenin' to you cuss old Blaine and the Socialists and whoever else you ain't feelin' happy about of a mornin'.'
'I'm so glad I amuse you,' Roosevelt said. 'I wish I amused myself. You do know that what you're laughing about is the humiliation of the United States?'
'Oh, no, Colonel-what I'm laughin' about is you cussin' the humiliation of the United States,' Snow said, a distinction a Jesuit might have envied. Before Roosevelt could remark on it, the hand went back into the barn, presumably to hitch the horses to the farm wagon. When he brought the wagon out, he gave Roosevelt a wistful look. 'Don't suppose you'd want some company on the way down to Helena?'
'I alone committed the sin of omission,' Roosevelt answered. 'I alone shall atone for it.' Philander Snow let
