I said, “When you dismount from one train in Baltimore, you take a carriage to the other. Calvert Street to Camden Street. It’s a mile between. In the space between the train and the carriage, their plan is to surround you. There will be so many of them, you won’t be able to escape. They will swarm you and thrust themselves upon you. They drew lots from a jar to see who would have the honor of murdering you. The lucky man was to be the one with a red mark on his paper.”
“And so one of them—if your intelligence is to be believed—will stab me, but we don’t know which one? It’s whoever drew this red mark?”
“On the contrary,” I said. “They all drew red marks. They will all try to stab you.”
There was a moment of silence while he let the impact settle on him. Then, making light, he said, “Doesn’t that seem excessive?”
“The makers of the plot want to be absolutely sure of your death. The men who will execute the plot stand ready to die in the attempt. Moderation is not their strong suit.”
From my pocket, I drew a square of paper. Tim Bellamy had gotten it into our hands, against all odds, in secret. I unfolded it and lay it down on the table in front of us. In the middle was a dark red blot of ink, as rusty and thick as blood.
At last, Lincoln said, “All right. Tell me how we will get through Baltimore.”
I said, “You’ll leave your dinner in Harrisburg early…” And I told him the rest of the plan, step by step, all we had carefully crafted to save him.
He listened all the way through. At the end, he nodded his assent.
“See you in Philadelphia,” I said.
• • •
I planned and purchased the costumes myself, Tim Bellamy being unavailable for his usual role as prop master. We had not heard anything definite from him in a week, not since the paper had been deposited at the cabin with a brief note explaining its meaning and import. If anything happened to him, how long would it take for us to find out? Or would we never know? He’d be buried under his alias, if there was even a marked grave. He might be dead already.
I brushed away the morbid thoughts as best I could. I needed to focus on the plan at hand. Perhaps Bellamy was in danger, and perhaps there was nothing I could do to save him. But Abraham Lincoln was indisputably in the biggest danger of his life, and his life depended on the success of this plan.
As planned, Lincoln was interrupted at his dinner in Harrisburg. His private secretary came in to tap his shoulder, and Lincoln excused himself from the dinner party without saying how long he would be gone. By the time a quarter of an hour had passed and people began to wonder at his absence, he would already be on the eastbound train.
Upstairs in the hotel, he changed into a slightly worn brown suit and left his trademark stovepipe hat on the chair. We thought about having him shave to remove his beard, further changing his appearance. But this furtive night trip would be followed hard on its heels by the most public and important moment of his life. He wanted to look like himself for that moment. I only wanted to make sure he got to that moment alive.
I waited in Philadelphia, trusting that the president-elect and his single guard were speeding toward me.
I had arranged for an entire car on the Pennsylvania Railroad sleeper, leaving Philadelphia at seven o’clock in the evening. The train from Harrisburg pulled in at quarter past six, and by prior arrangement, I was to enter the hindmost door as soon as it had pulled to a stop. The two men would be waiting for me just inside that door, one slated to go off in a different direction, and one ready to be spirited onto the Philadelphia train.
I stepped onto the train, and without greeting Lincoln, I flung a shawl about his shoulders and swapped out his hat for a soft mob cap. Then, spinning a finger to indicate he should turn around, I bumped the wheeled chair behind his knees, and he naturally sat down into it.
“Ready to go, Jacky?” I asked.
I saw the mob cap nod, and within the minute, we were off the Harrisburg train and headed toward the next. Lamon left us without fanfare; if all went well, we’d see him upon arrival in Washington.
News of Lincoln’s absence from the dinner in Harrisburg would by now be spreading. It would not reach us here, I knew; Pinkerton, a friend of the head of the telegraph company, had had all lines interrupted. There would be no word to or from Baltimore this night, not by telegraph, and nothing else could travel faster than we would. The cutting of the lines also improved our plan, as we knew there would be no communication at all while it was happening. Those plotting against us would not be able to punish us by cutting the lines, since it was already done.
It was time for me to play my part.
Shoving Lincoln ahead of me, my manner entitled and preemptory, I accosted the conductor and thrust our tickets in his direction.
“Where is the rear sleeping car? I have a car reserved. Can you show me where it is? I’m Dolores Mogden, and this is my brother, Jacky. He’s not well, you know—his lungs. Taking him down to Baltimore to see the best doctor in the land, thinks he can help him. Well, I don’t know if he can, but it’s a man’s life at stake, so we are gonna try it. By God, we are gonna try it.”
I saw the conductor’s eyes glaze with annoyance, sending my pulse rocketing. All according to plan.
“I’m Dolores, like I said, but you can call me Dot. Everyone does. Do you need to see our tickets? I have our tickets here. Where should we go? Can you show me there? Maybe tell me about the train?”
He gave the tickets the quickest glance and waved us forward. He did not walk us there, nor did he offer help of any kind, which pleased me no end. The farther away he stayed, the better things would be. The last thing we needed was an attentive man who would look down into the face of the supposed invalid and recognize him for who he really was.
And then we were on the train, and the train was pulling out of the station. We did not speak, but I heard Lincoln give an audible sigh.
The first part of the plan was complete. The second would be even harder.
I watched out the window as we went. Every once in a while, I saw a flash of light, a lantern shining and then extinguished. These were our signals, arranged by Pinkerton to assure us that nothing had gone wrong, not that we had many options if something had. Twenty miles. Forty. Sixty. All’s well. All’s well. All’s well.
The train pulled into Baltimore around half past three o’clock in the morning. Now, we had reached the moment of danger. Pitch blackness all around. We were here well ahead of the announced schedule, so the hope was that our enemies would not be ready. But perhaps we had underestimated them. If so, we would only find out once our feet were on the ground and it was too late to run.
The dark of the sleeping city did not jar me, but the silence was deafening. I had never seen a city so large absolutely devoid of people. It was a dead place, full of dead buildings lining dead streets. I did not want to see it spring to life.
It was not a long way between the Calvert Street Station and the Camden Street Station. And yet, it felt like we were crossing an ocean and not just a mile of city streets. The plan was for the sleeping car to be drawn by horse through the dark streets, and it seemed to go well as best I could tell from inside the car itself, jouncing this way and that.
But the train we were intended to join had not arrived yet. We were forced to dismount, and we were in the very last place we wanted to be: exposed, in the street, among the common people. And here at the Camden Street Station, despite the late hour, people milled about, waiting on their own various trains to come or to go. I spotted DeForest at work in his navy uniform, moving things from place to place, but I did not approach him, nor did he approach me. We couldn’t even signal to each other. The air was charged, and we couldn’t risk sparking it.
When the train finally did come, the news was bad. As I attempted to direct the joining of the cars, an engineer stepped in. “This car cannot
be joined to the others.”
“We were assured it could be.”
“And I am telling you it cannot.”
“I was told so by Mr. Morris.”
He sighed. “Morris won’t be here until the sun rises, and this train will be long gone by then. You must take passage in the train as it is.”
“No, for my brother’s health, isolation is absolutely required.”
I had chosen not to wear a gun for fear it would show—Dolores Mogden would have no reason to arm herself—but at that moment, I wished I’d chosen differently. Things could quickly go wrong, and once they did, it would be nearly impossible to wrestle them into place again.
A conductor interrupted, “Well, the last car is empty.”
The engineer said, “But they don’t have tickets for that car.”
“Well, what is she supposed to do otherwise?”
“Wait for the next train.”
I said, “We can’t do that.”
The conductor said, “Just wait a minute. I’ll try to find someone else who can straighten this out.”
I wanted to shout, but everything depended on not shouting. “No,” I said firmly. “You’re right. We’ll take the empty car. We’ll go to the back, and we’ll go now.”
“Ma’am, I don’t think…”
“We’ll go now,” I said and strode forward. As I walked, I breathed, focusing on every breath in, every breath out. Each time I drew breath, I expected to feel something. A firm hand on my shoulder. A man’s fingers grabbing my arm. A bullet in my back even. But miraculously, wonderfully, each time I let the breath out, I was still alive and unmolested. Even as I stepped into the car and placed both hands on the handles of Lincoln’s wheelchair—not a word, I whispered—no one put a hand on me, and we were heading toward an empty car we would claim for our own.
Then, even more wonderfully, we were aboard. A porter handed the luggage up to me through the open door—I saw DeForest’s mustache under the uniform cap—and I knew we had done what was needed.
I wheeled my disguised companion far enough into the final sleeping car to know that no one could see us from the outside. I pulled the curtains over the windows.
“Is this it?” he asked.
I held a finger up, and we waited in silence together. The train hummed to life beneath us. And with joy, I felt the train lurch forward on the track, its engine pulsing, the clickety-clack sound speeding faster and faster as the train shot into the night, southward toward Washington.
With satisfaction, I told him, “Go ahead and rise.”
He did, unfolding, and stretched his long legs. It must have been quite a relief. He sighed, long and low, and I could only think of how hard this had to be for him, how deeply against his nature. He only wanted to be open and straightforward, and all this skulking was the opposite. But we all knew what was at stake if we didn’t deliver him safely.
“Sir,” I said, but he interrupted me.
“Jacky,” he said.
“Jacky,” I said, smiling a little for the first time in what felt like weeks, “I think you can rest now. Good night.”
He lay down on a lower bunk, a slim pallet far too short for his size, and drew his knees up with another sigh. I knew he wasn’t quiet in his heart—who could be, given the danger?—but he also had to be utterly exhausted. I hoped he might have a moment’s peace.
For me, there would be none. I closed the door to the compartment and locked it behind me. I reached under the wheelchair frame and carefully dislodged the shotgun we had secreted there. Then I set my chair square in front of the locked door, lay the shotgun across my knees, and readied myself to wait out the night.
Chapter Twenty
We Never Sleep
Whatever my level of tiredness should have been, I felt no exhaustion, no temptation to close my eyes. I had never been so awake in my life. My aim was not as good with a shotgun as with a pistol, but in the close quarters of a railcar corridor, it would hardly matter.
I counted off the minutes in my head as we went, and with every minute that slipped into the past forever, my hope for success grew and grew. I had not imagined we would succeed, but neither had I imagined we could fail. I kept my mind on the next ten-minute interval, and I kept my eyes wide open. The dark world whooshed past outside the curtains of the closed windows. There was no scenery, no sound, nothing to distract my attention. If an assassin appeared, I was dead certain he would find himself no match for me.
We arrived in Washington with the sunrise.
As soon as the motion of the train had stilled, I opened the door to the outside a mere crack and put one open eye against it. We had planned every detail, but this was the last moment where things could go wrong. Would I see Pinkerton? Armed soldiers? No one at all? We only needed to get to Willard’s Hotel, and then all would be well.
I scanned the crowd. As one would expect at any train station, there were tears and embraces, nervous-looking couples waiting in silence, children in their Sunday best. There were soldiers galore, but they bustled about without pattern, and none had guns aimed in our direction.
Then I saw two familiar men, and I wanted to sob with relief. Only a surge of pride kept me upright and dry-eyed. I would not collapse in front of Tim Bellamy, not when I knew he had survived his own trials, surrounded by the enemy. The other man was Ward Hill Lamon, grinning brightly under his prodigious brown beard.
“Dolores has brought her brother Jacky home,” I said, and Lincoln emerged from the car, already mostly transformed back into himself. Lamon handed him his top hat to complete the picture. Lincoln set his large hand on my shoulder for just a moment, mouthed Thank you, and climbed up into the waiting wagon, heading forward.
The men drove off with their new president, and I remained behind to clean up, so weary I could barely stand. After I’d rested, I could let myself feel relief and satisfaction. First, there was work to be done.
• • •
Two days later, at the inauguration, we five Pinkertons were reunited. Hattie, Pinkerton, Bellamy, DeForest, and myself, all unscathed. We gathered to watch Lincoln become the president. For the moment, our disguises and roles were all set aside. We were ourselves.
Standing along Pennsylvania Avenue, the scaffolded white dome of the Capitol looming above us in the distance, I couldn’t believe our good fortune. If I’d been asked at the beginning of our sojourn whether we five would all make it through the Baltimore adventure, I wouldn’t have said yes. Dangers seemed too many, and we seemed too few. But we had this moment, breathing the air and standing together, and I was determined to savor it.
“I’m having new cards made for the agency,” said Pinkerton.
I shot him a quizzical look. Now didn’t seem the time for housekeeping.
“They’ll have our new motto.”
“Which is?”
“We Never Sleep,” he said and clapped me on the shoulder. He had never beamed at me with such obvious pride. It almost made me blush. A cheer went up from the crowd, which I knew was coincidence, but it still warmed my heart. What we’d done wouldn’t be known by the general public for many years, if at all. If a misattributed cheer was the only type I might get, I’d gladly take it.
Pinkerton moved on to whisper something to Bellamy, and I saw him clap the other man on the shoulder much as he’d done with me. If Bellamy was angry that our boss had congratulated a mere woman first, he didn’t show it. He smiled and shook Pinkerton’s hand with vigor. It was indeed a day for optimism and new beginnings.
I knew Pinkerton was apprehensive because Lincoln had chosen to ride to the inauguration in an open carriage, but once he arrived for his swearing-in, even the boss breathed a bit easier.
Hattie and I clasped hands. On my other side, Bellamy radiated a pure joy I’d never suspected he was capable of; on impulse, I reached out for his hand too. He didn
’t seem to react, but neither did he pull his fingers away. DeForest and Hattie twined their hands together as well, exchanging smiles. And the five of us watched as Abraham Lincoln—our Lincoln—was sworn in as president of the United States.
Even though we wondered how long the nation could be seen as united, there was an undeniable power in seeing him inaugurated. It felt like a hopeful moment. It felt right.
We heard the end of his speech in utter silence.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
I liked the idea that my nature might have better angels in it. Thinking on the things I’d done, bad things for good reasons, I wanted to believe behavior alone didn’t tell a person’s story. I looked at Pinkerton’s face, Hattie’s, Bellamy’s, DeForest’s, Lincoln’s. What had we done so far to get here? Deceived, lied, disguised, misled, threatened, entrapped, captured, hurt. If war came, or even if it didn’t, what more would we do? Were we devils, even on the angels’ side?
• • •
After the Baltimore sojourn, Pinkerton insisted we rest. He suggested some sort of rural retreat, but I only wanted to be in Chicago. I had been away too long. And I knew that despite the successful installation of our man in the presidency, there were still dissenting voices to be heard in many, many different places, and I had no doubt I would be sent out to listen to them again.
Girl in Disguise Page 17
