Lincoln's Assassin

by J F Pennington

  She looked at me with that particularly serious sense of playfulness she shared so readily with a young child. And, as the children of any age, which she so reluctantly yielded, if only in the face of mature reason and tame logic. It had been less than ten hours since I had kissed her goodbye for what I thought would be the last time.

  “I am ready,” she said in a low voice without meeting my gaze.

  “You are going home,” I insisted. “Before your dilettante stagecraft alerts all of Washington City to my plan.”

  Producing a dark cheroot, she remained non-plussed as she proceeded to light it with a long, deep gasp and answered gruffly. “The tobacconist did not even flinch when I ordered his finest belvedere.”

  “He may not have well seen your face, but even a fool could not mistake those hands for those of so much as a young boy. What is your enduring interest in this expedition? How must you find insufficient the fortune your father has surely promised?”

  “Not for me, John. These are not things I want for me. What do I care of me? You. I want them for you. I want them because you want them. Because they are a part of you. You deserve them. They are you. You are fame and success.”

  “And you are a little fool!” I snapped. But I did not believe it, even then. Even as I could see my world collapse about me. Even as she turned away.

  ***

  When the first snow fell in the city to dot and dash only the tops of so many pugnacious hedges and upstart shrubs, I felt I too could not be completely enveloped in its annual ritual. This year, this season, an unquestionable pair of eyes would continue to stare ever into my own and reign defiant spring.

  No one ever looked at me like that. It was always my eyes that had been avoided, my stare refused with denial’s laughter or nervous appraisal. Mine, which unconsciously canted the same spell that must have been my father’s mysterious hold upon an audience. Mine, whether studied or innate, gifted or practiced, was only theatrical. Hers was pure. No words, no favorite or familiar phrases, no scripted eloquence, no goading passages demanding certain and glib reply. Just sure and silent confrontation, confirmation of a deeper litany and an entreaty to recognize its seasonless rite.

  How could I walk alone again or imagine icy images of doubt or death or dormant expectation, but be held by their power, their private prayer. And behind each frosted window, each wreathed alcove and huddled street corner conversation, I saw their hearthside sparkle, felt their gracious welcome from the chilled day, heard too the voice that sweetly accompanied their soft-piercing stare.

  Each wrapped and mufflered traveler approaching even from the direction opposite where my mind knew I had only just kissed her blushed and tender cheeks goodbye, my heart shaped into her. And any bustled tread behind my own I dreamed as being their pursuit of one more eyeful embrace. I could not leave her wholly or simply as I had done a hundred others.

  ***

  It was the last night and it was our first night—for we had kissed and held and slept never more. I eased my body cautiously on top of hers and met her mouth first slowly, then complete; watched her eyes recede, their silver whites gleaming from under half-lifted lids. She fluttered beneath me. Her body heaved forward and my hands scooped up her shoulders and the small of her back to match her swaying with my own.

  I kissed her lips and chin and jaw, the hollow of her neck. Her skin’s own perfume filled my head like some remembered yet unknown scent—the incense of an ancient mystery, ceremonies we had performed in five-thousand flaming dreams until this night forgotten.

  She hurt and I could not hold her close enough. The rocking of our bodies shed in our minds the clothing we still wore. My hands traced their way along her back and sides to her soft, full contours.

  “Don’t make me wait,” she whispered while she grabbed at the back of my shirt.

  Or was it just a sigh?

  We were swept into a wordless poem. No words. No words. Lips, mouths, tongues, but no words. Cheeks, noses, chins, but no faces. Arms without memories, genius hands, legs and feet that sprang suddenly forth from where bodies once were. And her life and my seed, mixed silently in the faint glimmer of eyes, open in the dark. The truth of the one, the thought of the other, tangled in mutual curls. Hers light, mine dark.

  I felt my seed push, stir surely, subside to purer passion and stir once more. We danced again, our murmurs mingling in thick, curtained memories of moonlight.

  “Make love to me,” she said.

  No tone, no tinge of this or that.

  “Make love to me.”

  Again. And sure.

  “Please,” she murmured.

  If there had been some doubt—hers, mine, that of another, many could have come to mind—it was not heard. All was sounded in a moment, and only one word returned, remained amid the deepest channels of the lyric that had been and whose passing ghost would rise again and be eternal.

  “Now.”

  One shadow, one reminder of the unspoken. One truth, one feeling above the erst-summoned censures. One echo, one simple susurration—absolutely silent to any else. We heard it. Felt it reverberate. Knew its peal. Now!

  Again the urge exacted, the promise of progeny, painted fields with harvest claims. The now was then.

  And when the dance was finished, the panting musk changed to a whisper, tomorrow pressed between our flesh, the amber light—invisible and bright, I lay broken. As a horse, a heart, an arm or leg, a chair—a cornered sack of murphies. Broken and spent, but whole for what seemed the first time. I felt her next to me and let go one last breath.

  Scene III

  How strange it should be that his beautiful snow

  Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!

  Do not try to follow. I would not want you now, as it is.

  ***

  The morning before we arrived at Garrett’s Farm, Herold and I lounged on the doorstep of a deserted house that lay hidden deep within the security of the short pines and thickets which lace the Southern banks of the Rappahannock. We had spent the past week-and-a-half traveling the underground route, being well-received by nearly all—the one exception being a certain Dr. Richard Stuart, may he rot along with General Lee—and only just left the warmth and comfort of Office Hall, the home of Mr. William McDaniell. Well-fed and rested we were startled when two low, whooping whistles, followed after a short interval by a third, interrupted the silence. The sign of a friend. Still did we grab for our guns as two figures approached through the dense undergrowth.

  I soon recognized my own former slave and friend Henry Johnson, with a man he introduced as Badin accompanying him, both looking as if they had spent a fortnight walking the distance from New York to Richmond. That explained the condition of the man shot by Corbett. For Herold and I, as explained, experienced nothing in the way of palpable hardships—save my twisted ankle—since beginning our flight. Badin’s clothes were torn rags and his face thin, all of which led only to encourage my belief in him.

  “Who and what do you know?” I inquired.

  “What do you?” he correctly responded.

  “I know nothing. You?”

  “Nothing,” offering his hand simply.

  He claimed to be a former prize-fighter and officer in the Virginia militia, having only just resumed his residency in Washington. At the news of his prize-fighting I customarily asked if he knew of my former associate Thomas Mears. He said he did not. I was almost relieved, having never very much liked nor trusted Mears, though it was he who convinced me to carry a derringer, bidding me never fire it from a distance greater than my arm’s length.

  Badin said he had knowledge of the approach of Baker’s command. He would not tell how he had come by this information, but I trusted it for truth and asked him what I might do about it.

  “Escape,” said the ragman bluntly, licking his sparse moustache as if he had just finished the dream of a large and gravied dinner. Clearly he had not.

  I looked at my hobbled leg and asked how he thought tha
t might be done, my movements inhibited to such an extent that I could in no manner keep pace with my ever-nearing pursuers.

  “Do not worry, we shall lead them on a chase such as they could not expect.”

  “We?”

  “I shall continue on with Herold. I am weary from the road, but can still travel quickly. We will lead them inland while you lay in hiding.”

  “What? Just wait? Henry and I?”

  “Just you. Johnson will travel on down the river. The current is swift here and will soon take him to the one who can lead you to safety. You shall be out of danger by the morning and home again by the end of the week.”

  “Surely the Union troops will not be so easily fooled,” I worried.

  “I shall lead them due south. That is the direction they expect you to take, after all. There will be no reason for them to suppose you have found any help. We will exchange clothes you and I. You must give me all your effects, everything you have on your person—in case they have brought dogs with them.”

  I hesitated at the thought of giving up my small brocade medicine kit.

  “Even that is not a complete guarantee,” Badin continued. “You must promise me you will not move. It is the only way to be sure. They expect you to continue in your flight and Johnson must be sure where you will be in order to leave perfect instructions for his friend.”

  “Will he not be with his friend?”

  “No. He is being missed this very moment back in Baltimore. Surely you can imagine where they must think he is. No, he has much to do. He must leave yet another false trail, in the event he is discovered. His friend will be back for you. You will recognize him by his signal—just as you recognized mine.”

  “I do not know,” I protested. “I do not think myself well enough to travel alone. One more night. That is all I want. One more night in my fellows’ company.”

  “Yessir!” agreed young Herold enthusiastically as ever. “One more night. He is not well enough. Yessir, our rendezvous tonight is set and he will need a good meal and rest before slogging off alone—if that is what he must do.”

  “Very well,” conceded Badin. “One more night. I will learn what I may about the movements of your pursuers and meet you—”

  “Yessir! At Garrett’s Farm,” volunteered Herold.

  “At Garrett’s Farm,” he repeated. “At midnight.”

  And so Herold and I continued to our rendezvous and were well-met by the Garretts. I do not believe the children knew anything of my identity, nor had they yet heard any news, but they understood their father’s sympathies and that I was his very special guest.

  “And handsome,” said the eldest daughter, too forwardly for her mother’s approval. Garrett just laughed.

  The boys took Herold and me to the tobacco shed where we were outfitted with crude but adequate beddings and presently brought a hot meal with freshly baked cornbread. I picked about my stew while the nervous Herold only paced and fretted.

  It was nearly midnight when Badin re-appeared, true to his word. With his return, we discovered the door had been locked with a small but sturdy padlock. One of the Garrett boys acting on orders from his father to ensure our safety from intruders, we reasoned. Fine thinking. Badin came around the rear and easily slipped through a rather large break in an already scarcely slatted backside.

  With Badin’s accounting of the surrounding area, Herold’s drooping spirits were immediately lifted, anticipating the near and fortunate conclusion of our days in flight. But I was nervous. After having exchanged clothes per our agreement and rescuing over some objections the several pages from my diary on which I had begun to write a sort of stage play, I watched the others settle in for the night, silently grabbed my brocade kit and leather satchel and stole out through the same gap at the back of the shed. I needed to find a place in the thick grove beyond where I could ease my pain with a little morphine.

  That was all. Almost as quickly as I found myself under the moonlight I heard the approach of horsemen. At first I thought it only the effect of the drug, but even so, hid among the vines of a small ravine and, crouching, cursed the ragged shoes of Badin.

  There was a long, baying commotion at the Garrett home. I heard Richard Garrett’s voice trying to calm the sobbings of his wife and family. A young girl’s scream and the barking of orders were interrupted by the higher pitched shouts of the youngest boy. The frenzy seemed to continue for a long time.

  Some moments later everything went quiet and still. I started to make my way back, still low in the brush a hundred yards or less away when I heard another burst of voices. More commands sounded and I recognized Herold’s voice calling out. Still more commands, followed by Badin, in theatrical tones, confidently addressing the officer-in-charge.

  Then, I saw it. At first just a small glow in the dark, it grew brighter and larger until I began to realize what was happening. They had set fire to the shed. There would be little defense now. A single shot rang out.

  With that, I rose and turned and began to run. And I did not stop for a moment to look behind me for half-an-hour, an hour more, another. My foot was still swollen, but I felt nothing of it until I was far into the woods and the sun began to rise over my right shoulder. Realizing my exhaustion for the first time I collapsed at once into a tuft of tall, dewy grass and felt the separate pains of my lungs, my foot, my fears.

  I was truly alone.

  ***

  The first three days after fleeing Garrett’s Farm I scarcely moved a muscle. Concealed in the bed of underbrush my stalked scrambling had found, and never truly sure of my security or seclusion, I tried to sleep. The tiny quantity of morphine left from that final night with Herold and Badin I carefully rationed to encourage a rest otherwise hard fought.

  And every day-lit hour or two I would awaken again, some winged pest lighting now in my nose, now in my ear. And every portioned sleep would send patrols of hapless images: columns of mounted, blue-coated pursuers, red-faced Herold and a featureless ragman; a theater full of somewhat familiar figures, mostly topped with hats or veils of mourning, among them Dr. Mudd and poor, devoted Henry Johnson. From the rear lobby, one hand beckoning to the crowd, eyes lifted to heaven, the tyrant’s tall, gray, lanthorn visage. At one side his portly wife, held fast to him by a silk-and-gold braided tether, the start or end of which seemed indistinguishable, at the other, my beloved horse, Cola.

  Exiting all at once, the audience became a processional, my own ghostly heartbeat drumming the rhythm of what I certainly knew to be a dirge. Under an enormous shadow cast by a stovepipe hat, six hooded figures palled an ebony casket trimmed in swirls of tooled silver. The lid propped open several inches, a thick red lining was revealed. Inside it now, the celebrated form.

  Three full days I lay in still and quiet hiding, watched the shadows of three suns and moons rise and fall across my unfamiliar homeland yet dare not move, nor barely breathe at all. And each new dawn was another threat of hounds or men, and every night escape into a world of dark where alone I could rest until my dreams were filled with as many threats as my fevered head could hold, my dreaming having increased each day in clarity and effect upon my waking. Barking, baying dogs, uniformed and walking upright through open fields or scattered woods. Howling signals of intent to each other, their grinning teeth dripped streams of brandy, gathered into awaiting snifters throughout the field.

  By the morning of the fourth day my fever had broken, my ankle was healing. My leg had never been as bad as the newspaper accounts, but nonetheless caused me to limp. I feared I would never fully ride again. Nor play Richard to be sure. But I could walk and, my only hope of promised haven somewhere to the west, knew I must. Only at the end of an entire day on my feet was my gait strained and the old wound noticeable. This was a small price to pay for my liberation I thought, in moments when that liberation did not seem wholly accursed.

  Despite my meager ration, aimless wandering and withal, I began to feel better. I had no knowledge of the exact fate of Herold
and Badin but sensed the one had more than saved my life. I had felt a kind of silent debt from the dawn of my first day alone, an unrepayable favor done by an unknown friend, a spectral devotee’s wordless prayer said for the sake of an unknowable God. My flight renewed, his fearless faith became my own. As it had been my strength for those three nights, it became my hope for asylum where he had given his own.

  Of course there could be no thought of finding sanctuary with my family. Even had they wished it, they were, every one, closely watched by the secret police. Later I would learn Edwin and Joseph had indeed been arrested, though released after only a brief time. But I already intuited this, knew the pain of even a moment in a cell and wept for them. None of this was for their suspected part certainly, though for the pleasure of those who hoped I might still arrive as some dim-witted Lewis at a guarded and impassibly sentried door.

  And there were others. Relations whose ties held no familiarity yet still enough blood to command, I should think—if only temporary—relief. In the Carolinas, Tennessee, and far away Mississippi. But what good was that? Eventually they too would be summoned. If not by some local magistrate perhaps by the greed within their own bond-refuting souls.

  Of all my kin and cousins, even friends, whom could I trust? That man only, still unmet. Small, swarthy, and blacker-skinned than the newest arrival from Africa’s interior. He alone was competent with my person and secret. He alone had reason to exchange my confidence. Still, his skin, dark as it was, paled to his trustworthy soul.

  So for the time I took my chances along the winding rivers and hillsides, ever traveling westward at night. By day I burrowed like some creature of the fields into thick underbrush to rest. On the eve of the third of these days I awoke from my bed of grass and leaves to discover myself in a wooded glen at the base of a low hillock. Surmounting it was a deserted ore mill, the kind for which these hills are famous. Or so it first appeared.