by S. L. Stoner
Before he could ponder the meaning of that discovery, a blast of trumpets began a lively marching tune just as the presidential procession turned the corner at the bottom of Washington Street and advanced up the block. Sage turned, as did everyone, all eyes seeking the first glimpse of the president’s carriage. As he did, a stiff breeze swept across the platform causing all to clutch their hats.
Sage turned to look toward the west, into the breeze. The cloud had solidified into a wall of dense blue gray, rain a dark curtain slanting downward from its leading edge. He glanced at his watch. It was already ten minutes to four. He wondered whether the rain would be upon them even before the president arrived.
Jostling against his side interrupted these thoughts. A flood of dignitaries from the parade swept onto the platform, further crowding those already present. The newcomers were likely the governors from the neighboring states with their entourages. Sage fought to maintain his position against the press of bodies. A familiar voice sounded at his back. “Now, sirs, please do not crowd. Let’s move over this way,” Hanke spoke with the perfect mix of respect and command and Sage felt the pressure against his back easing. He turned and caught the sergeant’s eye. Hanke raised a questioning eyebrow but Sage could only shake his head. No, he had not spotted any of the assassins. Hanke’s brow furrowed and without another word he moved toward the front edge of the platform to gaze across a crowd that was packed tight as canned salmon.
Sage tried again to view the area around the Republican planning committee but the platform crowd had grown too great. He did spot a bobbing tall hat that he thought belonged to Dolph but he could see nothing of the rest of them. Probably because they were occupying the few chairs allowed on the platform. Once again, events overtook his search as the band and then the president’s carriage came to a halt. A fanfare of trumpets accompanied Roosevelt’s mounting of the platform. People surged forward, eager to get closer to the president.
“Will it happen now?” Sage wondered but dismissed that idea. No, it was too crowded. The press of bodies were shielding the president and none of them looked remotely like an unemployed, disgruntled printer. These were Portland’s elites, the rare few privileged to be close enough to clearly see and hear the president.
Below the level of the platform, many faces stared upward. With a start, Sage recognized that of his mother. She wore somber black, dress, boots, hat and coat. Her face was pale and strained. On either side of her, stood E.J. McAllister and his friend Robert Clooney, with Eich at her back. He stared at Mae, willing her to notice him. She did. A quick smile spread across her face and he grinned in return. She truly was safe.
With one hand, Sage gestured toward the platform and raised both eyebrows. She shook her head. So, the man she knew to be involved in the assassination was not visible from where she stood. She said something to McAllister, who swiftly extended his arm to give her support as she clambered atop a small flower planter in the northeast corner. Sage winced at the sight of her boot crushing red pansy plants. Still, her new vantage point could only help. Holding on to McAllister’s shoulder she raised up onto her toes and scanned the platform. Finished with her search, she again shook her head at Sage before lowering herself back down onto her heels. She kept her perch in the planter, however, one hand resting on McAllister’s shoulder. Sage saw Robert Clooney push up to her other side and then hold his ground like a determined guard dog. Those men weren’t going to let any harm come to Mae Clemens.
Meantime, Roosevelt was shaking hands with the architect of the monument, the Oregon governor and a few other notables, all of whom were rosy with pleasure. They showed a copper box to Roosevelt. He nodded and gestured toward the wooden podium standing at the platform’s center. Then he shook his head, gesturing toward the front of the platform. As if on cue, the clouds overhead let loose a deluge. From the crowded platform and the crowd below, there came gasps of dismay and the hurried unfurling of countless black umbrellas. Cries accompanied this uniform movement as the newly opened umbrellas smacked and poked.
True to his reputation, Roosevelt appeared neither dismayed nor discomforted. He apparently remained intent on rejecting the planned podium and speaking directly toward the front of the platform. It was obvious that he had realized that none in the immense crowd below the platform would stand a chance of hearing his words unless he moved closer to them. And, that was his intent. A phalanx of secret service men scurried along beside him as he strode right to within a few feet of the platform’s front.
The rain strengthened, hitting the umbrellas and pouring onto the ground that swiftly became a mire. A voice called for an umbrella but, when one appeared, the president waved it away. At last, a soldier’s rubber poncho appeared. This seemed to be acceptable because Roosevelt good-naturedly allowed two secret service men to drop it over his head and settle it around his shoulders. The crowd laughed along with Roosevelt when the men’s efforts knocked his wire-frame glasses from his nose.
Sage tensed. This was it. Out of deference to the speaker, the platform crowd moved back. For the first time since mounting the platform, the president stood alone, isolated. Sage was vaguely aware that the president’s opening remarks had elicited roars of laughter and cheers but had no idea what the man had said.
It was the perfect time for the assassin to attack. A frantic scanning of the crowd behind the president at last yielded the sight of the planning committee members. And there was the doctor. And there, to his side and slightly behind, stood the stranger. Sage studied the stranger’s face. Its expression differed from those of the surrounding people. The man’s eyes were narrowed, his lips compressed. He looked tense, like he was unhappy about being there or seriously irritated at the rain. And he wasn’t looking at the president, who cleared his throat and began speaking in his high, cultured voice. Instead, the stranger was eyeing the crowd standing around the base of the platform. Suddenly, he raised an arm, grabbed his hat and shook it as if to rid its brim of rain. Was that some sort of signal?
That gesture sent Sage’s attention spinning back toward the crowd below. “Damn, damn, damn,” he cursed under his breath. The open umbrellas made it almost impossible to see faces or even movement. But then he caught sight of a man rising onto another’s shoulders near the southeast corner of the platform. Unlike most of those present, the lifted man wore a workingman’s grubby clothes, battered hat and sported white bandages over most of his face. The man was looking at Sage and waving. With a start, Sage realized the waving man was Meachum. Simultaneously, there was another disturbance behind Meachum. It appeared a fight had erupted. The fracas ended almost immediately. At the far edge of the crowd, a cluster of men broke free. Sage squinted. Four white men were being forcefully marched away by a group of much smaller Chinese men. Sage smiled. The cousins had found and ejected the men who were supposed to create a distracting disturbance.
That left the two assassins, one an ignorant dupe, the other coldly determined.
He looked toward his mother. She still stood in the planter even though that vessel had filed and water was lapping at her boots. A drenched black feather drooped down from her hat brim and stuck to her cheek. She rose again onto her toes, her neck stretched out, her eyes straining to see those on the platform. Meachum too was searching from his perch atop his friend’s shoulders. The injured man’s attention, however, was focused on the people standing directly below the president. Damn those umbrellas. Hanke’s postured stiffened as he spotted Mae. The sergeant looked toward Sage, who felt his breath stop. Something was about to happen but he didn’t know what, where or who. Sage pointed two fingers toward his own eyes, and then pointed toward Meachum, mouthing, “Watch him!” Hanke understood, because he turned his full attention on the bandaged man. That left Sage free to divide his attention between Mae and those on the platform.
Ignorant of his danger, the president continued speaking. He ignored the rain now steadily dripping off his hat, sliding down the rubber poncho and pooling at his feet. R
oosevelt’s grand gestures and exhortations inspired cheers from those close enough to hear his words. Those cheers were picked up by those who could not hear the words, the sound moving in a rolling wave down the street. The wind strengthened, blowing sheets of rain sideways. To the east, Mt. Hood had completely disappeared behind billowing pewter-gray clouds.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Dispatch: May 21, 1903, 4:19 p.m., President in City Park, Portland, Oregon
“Our fight is a fundamental fight against both of the old corrupt party machines, for both are under the dominion of the plunder league of the professional politicians who are controlled and sustained by the great beneficiaries of privilege and reaction.” —T.R.
Sage’s body tensed and his blood began racing, filing his ears with a rushing sound. The umbrellas below the platform undulated forward and back as people pushed through and broke free of the crowd to shove against the police lines. The rope barrier sagged and then seemed to give way as people clambered onto the platform’s edge. Soldiers rushed forward and shoved them off the platform. The line of policemen re-formed and held.
Moving closer to the president, Sage’s gaze swept in an arc between those standing at the base of the platform and the stranger who stood next to Dr. Harvey behind the president. That man’s narrowed eyes were scanning the crowd in front of the platform.
Looking to where he’d last seen Meachum, Sage saw that his friend was no longer in sight. There was only a smattering of small boys perched atop shoulders so they could see but no Meachum. The patter of heavy raindrops hitting umbrellas was now nearly loud enough to drown out Roosevelt’s words. Despite this, he continued without pause, his speech precisely enunciated in the manner of an educated, eastern elite, his right hand jabbing the air to emphasize points, his big body twisting left and right to capture his listeners’ attention.
Directly below the platform, Mae still stood in the same flower box but now she was rigid, tense as a bird dog eying its target. Sage followed her look and, sure enough, her gaze was fixed on the man who stood beside Dr. Harvey. Sage began edging around behind the president, amid angry hisses and elbows in his ribs as he blocked first one person’s view and then another’s.
There was a disturbance in the far right-hand corner of the platform. The bandaged head of Meachum appeared and he clambered onto the structure. As the soldiers moved to shove him off, Hanke stepped forward and interceded. Meachum remained in place. He and Hanke exchanged whispers before, as one, they both turned to search the crowd bunched before the platform.
He had to get closer to the stranger standing next to Dr. Harvey. Sage took a step only to freeze as a sequence of events began unfolding before him. He saw Meachum move forward and point downward. At that same instant, the stranger on the platform began coughing violently and a man lunged out of the crowd to the platform’s edge. The president’s shouted words, the rain patter on umbrellas and the cheering crowd meant the actions of Meachum, the coughing stranger and the lunging man went unnoticed by everyone else–a riveting three-point pantomime Sage could only watch in horror.
Movement ahead of Sage snapped his attention back in the direction of Dr. Harvey’s companion. Sure enough, the coughing fellow was sidling backward while keeping all his attention on the man who now stood at Roosevelt’s feet.
Where was Hanke? Didn’t the sergeant know the president was in peril? And then, Sage saw him. Hanke had slipped off the platform into the crowd. He’d shed his helmet and was pushing in the direction Meachum had pointed. Small cries of irritation wafted up from beneath the umbrellas as the big policeman shouldered his way through.
The man at the president’s feet stared upward at his target with wide eyes. His lunge forward had knocked the hat from his head and rain was plastering dark hair onto his scalp. For a moment, the president paused and glanced downward, as if on some level of awareness, he sensed danger. “Instinctual, just like one of those animals he likes to hunt,” a part of Sage’s mind commented. But then, Roosevelt seemed to shake off his internal warning because he resumed speaking, his voice loud and firm.
Horrified, Sage watched the assassin began to raise his right arm, a brown, paper-wrapped, parcel clutched in his hand. The bomb. It had to be the bomb! Sage saw Meachum start forward along the platform’s edge, moving toward a point forward of the president.
Sage also began moving, his goal Roosevelt himself. He had to catch the bomb. Abruptly, his movement was checked as a secret service man whirled to face him. Abruptly shoving him back, the man gripped Sage’s upper arm and held on. The strength of the hold meant that Sage was going nowhere without a fight. Even as his mind raced through Fong’s instructions on how to break such a hold, Sage realized that it was too late. He couldn’t reach the president in time to shove him outside the bomb’s arc or deflect the bomb. In fact, all his leap toward Roosevelt had accomplished was to distract one of the president’s protectors.
A silent flurry of activity erupted at the front corner of the platform. Over the shoulder of the man who held him, Sage watched two other secret service agents spring into action but in the wrong direction. Just when Meachum was only five feet away from being between the bomber and the president, two agents seized his arms and lifted him off his feet. They quickly walked him backward to the platform’s side where they unceremoniously shoved him off the platform into the arms of waiting policemen who quickly carried a protesting Meachum away. Damn it!
Sage watched in horror as the man at Roosevelt’s feet began to raise his arm higher, making ready to throw the package he gripped in his hand. That hand, with its deadly object, reached shoulder height. Panic seized Sage, he fought for release. That bomb was about to fly
Absurdly, Roosevelt himself had raised the emotional pitch of his speech to such a high level that its intensity seemed to echo the fear gripping Sage. Sage opened his mouth to scream a warning. But, even as he did so, he saw a white-gloved hand reach around the assassin and grab the man’s forearm, jerking it backward. Hanke’s face appeared, floating behind the assassin’s shoulder, his big face grimacing with effort as the two of them struggled over which of them would possess the bomb.
Chaos erupted below Roosevelt as police officers abandoned their duty at the rope and rushed to help subdue the assassin. Hanke’s hand reappeared, gripping the brown, paper wrapped parcel. He watched the big policeman carefully pass the bomb to a colleague, lean over to issue some instructions and then begin to push his way toward the platform.
During this minor melee, Roosevelt had continued speaking. From the angle of his head, it was clear that the tussle at his feet had not escaped the president’s notice. Apparently, the expressions on Sage’s face, as he watched these events take place, caused the man holding Sage to release his grip and turn back toward the president. Sage immediately moved in the direction of Dr. Harvey. He noticed the stranger had stopped coughing and stepped forward. Now he stood close to Harvey’s right side. One side of the stranger’s mouth twisted in a slight, rueful smile. For the first time, the man’s attention was focused on Roosevelt. Then his eyes flicked toward Sage. Like a snake the man’s right hand whipped under his coat and emerged with a small gun. Without taking his eyes from Sage’s, he shoved the gun beneath his left arm, aiming its barrel at the doctor’s ribs.
“What is happening?” Sage’s mind shouted. In answer, the man’s eyes narrowed as a sharp report sounded. Harvey cried out and began to fall. Shrieks and shouts erupted even as Harvey’s body fell. The stranger didn’t hesitate. His attention switched to the president, who stopped speaking. The gun began to rise. Sage glanced over his shoulder, saw Roosevelt start to turn his body toward the commotion at the rear of the platform. Sage’s mind was shouting, “The bullet, stop the bullet!” Sage jumped forward, his arms outstretched. A word roared out of his mouth, “Noooo . . .” even as a corner of his mind coldly calculated the distance and gave him a less than even chance of intercepting the bullet.
The man’s gun hand swung forward in one
smooth move. Just as it aimed at Roosevelt, a loud report sounded, cutting through the pattering rain and crowd noise. In the sudden hush, Sage’s airborne launch sent him slamming down onto his side. As he fell, his eyes locked on those of the stranger. Then he saw that the man was falling too and, that those pale eyes were widening with shock. Then a forest of legs quickly surrounded the man, cutting the link between them.
A frantic hand grabbed at Sage’s shoulder. His mother’s voice, almost a keen, was saying his name over and over. Sage breathed deeply, realizing that, other than where his hip had collided with the concrete, he felt no pain. “I’m fine Ma, really I’m fine” he told her.
He heard her shaky intake of breath before she said, somewhat sharply, “Well then, haul yourself up. The president is still on the platform. You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”
Hauling himself onto his feet as ordered, Sage was vaguely aware that Roosevelt was again speaking, this time calming the crowd, assuring them all was well. Of course, all was not well. Dr. Harvey’s sightless eyes stared up into the rain. Nothing would be well for him ever again. Before Sage could dwell on that maudlin thought, his mother’s voice snagged his attention. He looked toward her. Her hat was askew, she had a bloody scratch along one cheek and she was missing a few buttons from her sensible black coat. She had obviously fought her way to her son’s side. She wasn’t looking at him, though. Instead her gaze was also fixed on the dead doctor. “Hmpf, well, good riddance to that wicked creature,” she said as she straightened her hat, flicking its feather off her cheek.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Dispatch: May 21, 1903, Evening, President Roosevelt remains in Portland, Oregon.
