Virtue unalloyed would have sent him straight back to the ranch. His virtue turned out not to be quite free of admixture. Instead of riding out of town with the kerosene, he went over to the offices of the Helena Gazette. As usual, a crowd had gathered in front of the building to read the newspaper on display under glass.
Roosevelt hitched the wagon and started working his way through the crowd toward the paper. He didn't worry about the kerosene; nobody could inconspicuously amble off with a five-gallon milk can full of the stuff. Men made way for him, so he got to the Gazette far sooner than he would have before he'd recruited the Unauthorized Regiment. They reached out to shake his hand or slap him on the back. If Helena had anything to say about it, he could have been elected president tomorrow.
What he read, though, made him grind his teeth. "The arrogance of our enemies!" he burst out. "But for Maine, they hold not a single square inch of our sacred soil, yet they presume to order us around as if we were beasts of burden."
"What are we going to do to them?" somebody asked. "What can we do to them? We're too busy squabbling among ourselves to hurt anybody else." He pointed to a story about a Socialist parade in Boston that had got out of hand. The police had opened fire, and four were dead, including one policeman. Red is the color of the blood of martyrs, a Socialist spokesman was quoted as saying.
"To hell with Abraham Lincoln," Roosevelt ground out. "Custer was right-Pope should have hanged him while he had him under lock and key in Utah Territory. He's ten times as much trouble as all the Mormons and all their wives put together." He heard himself in some surprise; he hadn't thought he might agree with Custer on anything.
About half the crowd in front of the copy of the Gazette loudly approved his words. The other half-miners, mostly-as loudly told him where to go and how to get there. Helena, he remembered, had broken out in riots after one of Lincoln 's speeches, while Great Falls had stayed calm. To a man who had nothing to offer but the sweat of his brow, class warfare was a seductive strumpet indeed.
"I don't think Lincoln 's is the best way for the working men of this country to get a square deal," he said, sticking out his chin. "And besides, if we fight one another, who wins? Do the capitalists win? Do the workers win? Not a chance in hell, either way. I'll tell you who wins: the British and the French and the Confederates. Nobody else."
That got him a thoughtful silence. He was happy enough to gain even so much; he'd been wondering whether Helena would erupt again on account of him. He knew where the Gatling guns were. Colonel Welton had kept most of them even after Custer returned to Kansas. They were the most telling argument yet prepared against the rise of Socialism.
But then a miner said, "Colonel, you can talk about winners and losers as much as you like-when you're one of the winners. When you're putting in twelve, fourteen hours underground six days a week and you don't make enough to feed yourself, let alone your wife and children, well, hell, you've already lost. How are you worse off then if you try and do something different? What can you throw away that ain't already gone?"
The miner drew applause from people who had booed Roosevelt; those who had agreed with him stood silent, waiting to hear what he would say. He picked his words with care: "Do you want to burn down the timbers that arc holding up the roof of the tunnel? That's what Red revolution means. If you want to shore up the roof so it doesn't come down on your head, peaceably petition the government for redress of grievances."
"And a hell of a lot of good that'll do," the miner said. "They only listen to the bastards with money."
"No," Roosevelt said. "They listen to the bastards with votes. And you mark my words, sir: they will go a hell of a long way to keep the revolution from coming. A man will do a great many startling things if all his other choices look worse. On that you may rely."
" Lincoln said the same damn thing, and you were going on about hanging him," the miner said.
" Lincoln pays lip service to peaceable redress, but he doesn't believe in it," Roosevelt said. "I do."
The miner looked him up and down. "You don't mind me saying so, there's a hell of a lot of difference between what some pup who was a cavalry colonel for a little while thinks and what goes through the head of a fellow who was president of the United States and who's been trying to help the little fellow, the labouring man, his whole life long."
Some little pup who was a cavalry colonel for a little while. A flush heated Roosevelt 's cheeks and turned his ears to fire. Now he knew what came after hero: has-been. Savagely, he said, " Lincoln is the past. I am the future. And Socialism, sir, Socialism is the road to ruin."
If he impressed the miner, the man-who had to be at least twice his age-did not show it. "Talk is cheap," he said. "You get to be as old as Lincoln is nowadays, you look back and see what you've done, see if you measure up. You ask me, it ain't likely."
"I will take that wager, and I will take that chance," Theodore Roosevelt said. "And there is one thing Lincoln has done that I swear before almighty God I shall never do."
"Yeah?" The miner laughed. "What is it?"
"If the chance should come my way to fight the Confederate States of America, I shall never lose a war to them," Roosevelt promised. The miner laughed again. Roosevelt didn't care.
General Thomas Jackson had just finished the last piece of fried chicken on his plate and was wiping his fingers when someone knocked on the door of his Richmond house. "Who could that be?" his wife said in some annoyance. "I had looked for a quiet evening at home. Since the war took you away from your family for so long, I think I am entitled to look for a few quiet evenings at home with you."
"Let us hope it is some traveler who has lost his way and seeks directions, then," Jackson said. "But if it is not, Mary, that too is as God wills."
Cyrus, the butler, came into the dining room. "General Jackson, suh, Senator Hampton say he wish to have a word with you," the slave reported.
" Hampton?" Jackson 's eyebrows rose. So did he. "Of course I'll see him. You've put him in the parlor?" Cyrus nodded. Jackson headed in that direction. "I wonder what on earth he can want with me, though."
When he went into the parlor, Wade Hampton III rose from a sofa to shake his hand. The senator from South Carolina was five or six years older than Jackson, portly but erect, balding, with a neat beard once brown but now mostly gray and splendid mustachios. He and Jackson had known each other for twenty years, since the days when the former planter commanded a cavalry brigade under Jeb Stuart.
After the greetings were done, after Hampton had declined food and drink, the South Carolinian closed both doors into the parlor, having first looked up and down each hallway to ensure that no one lurked nearby. That bit of melodrama accomplished, he said, "I must have your word, General, that, come what may, what we say and do here tonight shall remain solely between the two of us."
"Well, sir, that depends," Jackson said. "If you are contemplating treason against the government of the Confederate States, I'm afraid I cannot help you."
He'd meant it for a joke, a piece of light badinage. The last thing he expected was for Wade Hampton to look as if he'd just taken a gunshot wound. Slowly, Hampton said, "Treason against the government of the Confederate States is not the same as treason against the Confederate States. Of this I am convinced down to the bottom of my soul. If you disagree, tell me at once, and I shall bid you a good evening and beg your pardon for having disturbed you."
"You had better tell me more," Jackson said, also slowly. "I must confess, I have not the faintest idea of what you are talking about. Do you believe that I, in my recent conversation with General Rosecrans and Mr. Hay, am somehow betraying our country? If so, sir, we would be wiser to continue this conversation through our friends." Dueling had been illegal in Virginia for many years. From time to time, though, gentlemen still traded fire on the field of honor.