Mike Resnick - The Other Teddy Roosevelts

— Gen. John J. Pershing

22 September, 1917

Dispatch from President Woodrow Wilson to General John J. Pershing, Commander of American Forces in Europe.

John:

That man continues to harass me from the grave.

Still, we have had more than enough fools in our history. Therefore, he died a hero.

Just between you and me, the time for heroes is past. I hope with all my heart that he was our last.

— Woodrow Wilson

And he was.

The first and greatest love of Roosevelt’s life was his wife, Alice. He all but worshipped her, and when she died (on the same day, and in the same house, as his mother) he left New York, moved to the Dakota Bad Lands, and never allowed her name to be mentioned in his presence again.

It’s no secret that I consider him our greatest and most accomplished American. And from time to time I wondered what his life would have been like had Alice lived. And finally I wrote the story.

Like most of the Roosevelt stories, it ran in Asimov’s . This is its first appearance since then. It has certainly garnered less notice than any of my other Teddy stories, but it’s always been my favorite of them, and seems a fitting chronological end to his alternate historical career.

“And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went from my life for ever.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

In Memory of my Darling Wife (1884)

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”

— Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking-Glass (1872)

The date is February 14, 1884.

Theodore Roosevelt holds Alice in his arms, cradling her head against his massive chest. The house is cursed, no doubt about it, and he resolves to sell it as soon as Death has claimed yet another victim.

His mother lies in her bed down the hall. She has been dead for almost eight hours. Three rooms away his two-day-old daughter wails mournfully. The doctors have done all they can for Alice, and now they sit in the parlor and wait while the 26-year-old State Assembleyman spends his last few moments with his wife, tears running down his cheeks and falling onto her honey-colored hair.

The undertaker arrives for his mother, and looks into the room. He decides that perhaps he should stay, and he joins the doctors downstairs.

How can this be happening, wonders Roosevelt. Have I come this far, accomplished this much, triumphed over so many obstacles, only to lose you both on the same day?

He shakes his head furiously. No! , he screams silently. I will not allow it! I have looked Death in the eye before and stared him down. Draw your strength from me, for I have strength to spare!

And, miraculously, she does draw strength from him. Her breathing becomes more regular, and some thirty minutes later he sees her eyelids flutter. He yells for the doctors, who come up the stairs, expecting to find him holding a corpse in his arms. What they find is a semi-conscious young woman who, for no earthly reason, is fighting to live. It is touch and go for three days and three nights, but finally, on February 17, she is pronounced on the road to recovery, and for the first time in almost four days, Roosevelt sleeps.

And as he sleeps, strange images come to him in his dreams. He sees a hill in a strange, sunbaked land, and himself riding up it, pistols blazing. He sees a vast savannah, filled with more beasts than he ever knew existed. He sees a mansion, painted white. He sees many things and many events, a pageant he is unable to interpret, and then the pageant ends and he seems to see a life filled with the face and the scent and the touch of the only woman he has ever loved, and he is content.

New York is too small for him, and he longs for the wide open spaces of his beloved Dakota Bad Lands. He buys a ranch near Medora, names it Elkhorn, and moves Alice and his daughter out in the summer.

The air is too dry for Alice, the dust and pollen too much for her, and he offers to take her back to the city, but she waves his arguments away with a delicate white hand. If this is where he wants to be, she will adjust; she wants only to be a good wife to him, never a burden.

Ranching and hunting, ornithology and taxidermy, being a husband to Alice and a father to young Alice, writing a history of the West for Scribner’s and a series of monographs for the scientific journals are not enough to keep him busy, and he takes on the added burden of Deputy Marshall, a sign of permanence, for he has agreed to a two-year term.

But then comes the Winter of the Blue Snow, the worst blizzard ever to hit the Bad Lands, and Alice contracts pneumonia. He tries to nurse her himself, but the condition worsens, her breathing becomes labored, the child’s wet nurse threatens to leave if they remain, and finally Roosevelt puts Elkhorn up for sale and moves back to New York.

Alice recovers, slowly to be sure, but by February she is once again able to resume a social life, and Roosevelt feels a great burden lifted from his shoulders. Never again will he make the mistake of forcing the vigorous outdoor life upon a frail flower that cannot be taken from its hothouse.

He sleeps, more restlessly than usual, and the images return. He is alone, on horseback, in the Blue Snow. The drifts are piled higher than his head, and ahead of him he can see the three desperadoes he is chasing. He has no weapons, not even a knife, but he feels confident. The guns they used to kill so many others will not work in this weather; the triggers and hammers will be frozen solid, and even if they should manage to get off a shot, the wind and the lack of visibility will protect him.

He pulls a piece of beef jerky from his pocket and chews it thoughtfully. They may have the guns, but he has the food, and within a day or two the advantage will be his. He is in no hurry. He knows where he will confront them, he knows how he will take them if they offer any resistance, he even knows the route by which he will return with them to Medora.

He studies the tracks in the snow. One of their horses is already lame, another exhausted. He dismounts, opens one of the sacks of oats he is carrying, and holds it for his own horse to eat.

There is a cave two miles ahead, large enough for both him and the horse, and if no one has found it, there is a supply of firewood he laid in during his last grizzly-hunting trip.

In his dream, Roosevelt sees himself mount up again and watch the three fleeing figures. He cannot hear the words, but his lips seem to be saying: Tomorrow you’re mine…

He runs for mayor of New York in 1886, and loses — and immediately begins planning to run for Governor, but Alice cannot bear the rigors of campaigning, or the humiliation of defeat. Please , she begs him, please don’t give the rabble another chance to reject you . And because he loves her, he accedes to her wishes, and loses himself in his writing. He begins work on a history of the opening of the American West, then stops after the first volume when he realizes that he will have to actually return to the frontier to gather more material if the series is to go on, and he cannot bear to be away from her. Instead, he writes the definitive treatise on taxidermy, for which he is paid a modest stipend. The book is well received by the scientific community, and Roosevelt is justifiably proud.