The Road Agent

by Clyde Barker

  The First National Bank of Illinois was the latest addition to what was fast becoming Terra Nova’s business district. A handsome and imposing brick-built structure, it was covered in gleaming white stucco. The paintwork around the windows and doors was a pleasing shade of green and, as an architectural flourish, wrought iron balconies had been incorporated into the front and at the side on the upper floor. What especially interested Brent Clancy was that the balcony at the side overlooked an empty lot, because this was now the furthest extent of the offices and stores of Main Street. If the president gave his speech from this balcony, then the whole town would be able to listen to him. More to the point, from Clancy’s point of view, anybody wishing to launch an attack upon the president would be obliged to show himself. Shooting at him with a rifle would not be an attractive option for there were no buildings facing the balcony. With luck, he could bring them out into the open and this would give him the chance to nail the bastard who had killed his brother.

  There would be a fair crowd of folk at the depot in a few hours, awaiting the arrival of President Johnson’s special train. Clancy wanted to ensure that no attempt would be made on anybody’s life actually at the depot. If there were to be an explosion there, it would be a fearful business. The manager of the place though assured him that nothing was out of the ordinary. He said, ‘I reckon me or the fellows would have noticed anything untoward. It’s just like a regular day though, bar this here “special” that’s coming through in a couple of hours.’

  For the next few hours, Clancy prowled the town like a restless and angry tiger. He knew that the man who had killed his brother and tried to kill him was still on the loose, but wherever he was, he was keeping his head down. Just as well for him, for Clancy knew that the next time they encountered each other, one of them was sure to die.

  In the course of the brief conversation that he had had with him earlier that morning, Tom Parker had struck Clancy as the sort of plodding stickler for rules who would be hard to shift from what he saw as the ‘official’ course of action. Clancy had prepared various arguments that he hoped would suffice to persuade the older man to deviate from the planned itinerary for the president’s stay in Terra Nova. When he got to the depot at about half past three though, there was no sign of Parker. When it lacked five minutes to the hour and there was still no indication that Parker was likely to be taking part in the reception, Clancy breathed a little easier. Word received from down the line, via the telegraph, suggested that the special train was running a few minutes late. Brent took the opportunity to approach the group of smartly dressed councilmen who were waiting to greet President Johnson. They proved easier to deal with than he had thought likely. Having approached the leader of the council, Clancy said respectfully, ‘Sir, I’m right sorry to trouble you. I’m the brother of your late sheriff. . . .’

  ‘Late sheriff?’ asked the elderly man in some bewilderment. ‘I haven’t the pleasure of understanding you, young man.’

  ‘My brother Grant was killed last night. His house burned down. He swore me in as a deputy though, there’s a couple of the other deputies can vouch for me.’

  ‘That’s terrible, just terrible. I heard there’d been a fire, but I didn’t know . . . I’m sorry for your loss. And ours. Your brother was a fine man.’

  ‘He laid a charge upon me before he died, in a manner of speaking. It relates to the president.’

  The councilmen were all looking at Clancy now and he wondered what they made of him. Not much, most likely. He said, ‘My brother was uneasy about President Johnson speaking in an enclosed space. He wanted the arrangement changed, so that the president addresses the town not in the civic hall, but rather from the balcony in the new bank building, the one overlooking the vacant lot.’ Brent Clancy had never read, nor even heard of Machiavelli, but he was certainly following that writer’s dictum that when the end is lawful, then this justifies the means. He felt a little bad about attributing his plan to his dead brother, but felt that the idea would carry more weight with the council if they thought that it came from Grant Clancy, rather than his disreputable-looking young brother.

  ‘Are you saying that your brother had some apprehension of harm befalling the president while he was in the town?’ asked one of the councilmen.

  ‘I am, sir,’ replied Clancy truthfully. ‘It was greatly on his mind yesterday.’

  The last thing anybody wished was for something to happen to the president in the course of his stay in town. After a brief consultation among themselves, the leader of the council said to Clancy, ‘If Sheriff Clancy truly thought that having President Johnson speak outside, rather than in the hall, was for the best, then I can see no objection to adopting that course of action.’

  ‘Perhaps if we told the president that we are doing this because so many folk are desirous of seeing him, it might make him less inclined to cancel his engagement entirely?’

  ‘Was that you brother’s idea, son, or your own?’

  ‘Mine, sir.’

  ‘Well, it’s sound enough.’

  So it was that when ten minutes later the special pulled into the depot, Clancy was able to stand on the sidelines, watching the crowd intently, alert for any sign of hostility towards the president.

  The presidential party, including Secretary of State Seward and various other dignitaries, made their way on foot down Main Street to the Imperial Hotel, where they were scheduled to rest up for a few hours until the time came for Johnson’s great speech about preserving the Union, by which he meant, of course, his own presidency. He was by no means displeased to be told that so great was the eagerness to hear him speak that the civic hall was quite inadequate for the purpose. Hadn’t he said all along that ordinary people were the ones with the brains to recognize a good thing when they saw it? Let those fools in Washington see how popular he was and gnaw their tongues in impotent fury, he would show them.

  The first intimation that Mason and the others had that their plan was in jeopardy came from Johnny West. Frank Mason and his four companions were seated peaceably in an eating house, drinking coffee and generally keeping out of the way while the president arrived in town and settled in. After Johnny West’s run-in with the sheriff’s brother, it was felt that the less that the conspirators showed themselves on the public streets, the less chance was there of their scheme miscarrying because of some private act of vengeance from the hot-headed young road agent. When West appeared, at about five, three hours before President Johnson was giving his speech, the five men in the eating house were feeling as relaxed as you like. Nothing could go wrong now and the game was all but over. The short length of fuse protruding from the wall of the civic hall needed only to be ignited and then, four minutes later, there would be the loudest sound ever heard in this town.

  As soon as West walked through the door, it was plain that he was greatly perturbed in his mind. He walked straight over to Mason and said in a low voice, ‘We got a big, big problem. Johnson ain’t speaking at the hall. Not going near nor by the place, neither.’

  ‘What the Deuce are you talking about?’ asked Mason, a feeling of dread gripping him. ‘He’s here alright, saw him through the window, walking down the street with his men. What d’you mean, he’s not going to speak?’

  ‘He’s a goin’ for to speak, just not at that hall. He’s addressing the crowd from some balcony, down the way.’

  ‘How sure are you?’

  ‘Certain sure. It’s the theme of general conversation on the street. Something ’bout the civic hall being too small.’

  For a few seconds, all six of them looked at each other wordlessly, seeing the ruination of all their hopes. Then Mason said harshly, ‘Well then, we’ll need to try another way, won’t we?’

  ‘Like what?’ asked one of the men sitting at the table.

  ‘First off is where we need to see where this speech is being given now,’ said Frank Mason. Turning to West he asked, ‘You know where it’s happening?’

  ‘Sure.�
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  ‘Then, gentlemen,’ said Mason, ‘We have only a few hours to prepare.’ He got to his feet and the others followed suit. The prospect of failure was not only an appalling one to them, meaning as it did, the continued and oppressive military occupation of the southern states by the Union army, it also presented them with the very real possibility that their recent crimes might be brought home to them, with fatal consequences.

  Clancy was ready for any desperate action, knowing that once their plans had been upset, the men who had lately been on his tail would stick at nought. The stakes that such men were playing for were so high that they surely knew that their lives would be forfeit if they failed. One only had to look at the way that Mary Surrat, whose only crime had been renting a room to the man who had shot Abraham Lincoln, had been hanged. The men in the present case had encompassed the death of the president and worked actively to bring it about. They had nothing to lose now. Brent Clancy was musing along these lines while perched on the very roof of the civic hall. He had figured that whatever plans had been made must feature either this place or the Imperial Hotel. From his vantage point, Clancy was able to watch both locations and so spotted immediately when the man who had stabbed him earlier that day came into view below, accompanied by five other men. One of these was the man whose watch and papers Clancy had stolen when he knocked over the stage to Indian Falls. Everything was falling neatly into place.

  As they passed the Imperial, Mason observed quietly, ‘I’d say those are Pinkertons’ men standing there on the steps. What do you fellows say?’

  The others cast covert glances in the direction of the hotel and then grunted agreement. Johnny West said, ‘They must be nervous, if they have to hire extra help to guard him, as well as the real law. You reckon Lincoln getting killed last year made ’em kind o’ jumpy about presidents being shot and so on?’

  ‘I’d say it’s highly likely,’ said Mason drily.

  There were so many groups of people milling about, discussing the news that the president was going to speak to them all from the bank building, instead of them having to be squashed into the hall, that Mason and his companions did not stand out. They strolled along casually, as though time were not their deadly enemy and they had all the leisure they required to take in the sights. Johnny West said suddenly, ‘What’s to hinder us from fetching one of them carboys and setting it down near the bank? Wouldn’t have to worry about fuses and such, I could get up on yonder roof and fire at it. I’m guessing all those high-ups will be coming together.’

  Mason and the others thought this proposal over for a minute or so. It seemed to be either that or abandoning their quest entirely. With the amount of guards milling about the Imperial Hotel, it was as plain as a pikestaff that it would be pointless to try and shoot the president and his colleagues down. The odds of killing them all were slender in the extreme. Leaving the secretary of state alive would mean that authority automatically passed to him in the event of the president’s sudden demise. This would not do at all, for then Edwin Stanton would, once again, be stymied. Without Stanton’s succession to power, the whole ‘Great Enterprise’ was doomed to failure.

  The civic hall lay empty and abandoned. Two hours earlier it had been humming with activity and filled with bustling men and women, eager to see that their town put on its best face for such an important visitor. Now that the president would not even be setting foot in there, there was little point in doing more. Ladders were propped against walls, where men had been hanging twisted ribbons to bedeck the place and not one person was to be found there. Frank Mason and the other five men marched straight in and made their way to the back of the stage. West said, ‘You think we can set both of them side by side outside the bank?’

  ‘That might look mighty odd,’ said one of the others, ‘I’m thinking that one is all we can chance. What do you say, Mason?’

  ‘Yes, just the one. Providing that Johnson and his cronies are nearby, they’ll all be killed for sure. That’s forty pounds weight of explosives.’ That any number of innocent men, women and children standing nigh to the president would also die was nothing to either Frank Mason or the others.

  There was still two or three hours before President Johnson and his entourage were due to step through the front door of the bank and so Mason and the others faced a dilemma. Obviously, they could not start positioning heavy flasks of liquid in front of the bank while the Pinkertons’ men or federal officers were sniffing around. Nor would they wish to leave the thing near the bank for too long before the arrival of the president, lest some busybody should wonder what it was. Ideally, it would be in place just before Johnson and his men fetched up there, as though it was just some feature of the street; an item awaiting collection or some such. Since the speech was to be delivered at eight, the men decided to carry the carboy out of the civic hall and put it in the space between the bank and the next building at a quarter after seven. The president’s party, including it was hoped Secretary of State Seward, must walk past this place when they walked from the Imperial Hotel to the new bank, and if Johnny West could be trusted to put a ball through the container then their plans would not be frustrated.

  Mason and the others went back to the Imperial for an hour or two, merely to keep off the street and out of sight of the young man who was seeking their blood. Johnny West went off to scout out the necessary position on the rooftops overlooking the bank. He also wished to get himself installed there well ahead of time. The last thing needful was for any of those guarding the president to see anybody clambering about on the buildings overlooking the president’s route; especially one with a rifle in his hand! The stiller and less obtrusive he was up there, the better.

  Watching from his vantage point, Clancy saw the men split up and had to choose whether to go after the larger group or to follow the man he had earlier had the run-in with. With considerable reluctance, he decided that the five men should take priority for now. There would be a reckoning with the other later. Clancy had no intention of challenging these characters yet, but wanted to catch them in the actual commission of some act of violence. He slid swiftly down the iron fire ladder at back of the building and then raced around the side, in time to see the five of them as they strolled towards the Imperial. Just as he had suspected, they turned into the entrance of the hotel. At least he now had all the rats in one trap, as you might say.

  It was not hard to see that if some kind of mine was to be sprung that would be powerful enough to reduce a building to rubble then a large quantity of either black powder or nitro would be needed. There had been no sign of anything like that in the hotel rooms and so Clancy thought it might be worth checking over the civic hall, which was, after all, where everybody had thought until lately that President Johnson would be speaking. As he turned back to have a look around the hall, Clancy chanced to bump into another of the deputies, a fellow no more than five years older than he himself, who said, ‘Say, you ain’t seen Tom Parker on your travels, I suppose? Fellow’s vanished entirely.’

  ‘He was meant to be at the depot earlier, he didn’t show though.’

  ‘You know the Justice is wanting to speak to you? ’Bout that fire at your brother’s house. Captain o’ the fire crew laid an information that he had cause to suspect arson.’

  The truth was that Clancy had thrown himself into hunting for the Klansmen that morning for no other reason than to blot from his mind the memory and thought of his brother and his wife and little ’uns being burned to death. He’d no wish to consider the matter now and said instead, ‘I’m bound over to the hall. Might be some clue there to what’s been happening. You want to come?’

  ‘Might as well,’ said the other man, a little moodily. ‘Without your brother, nobody seems to know what’s what any more.’

  The two deputies walked down to the civic hall and poked around the place for a spell. It was the other man, whose name was Andrew Nolan, who suggested a look under the stage and Clancy mentally kicked himself for not th
inking of it first. There was no illumination in the dusty and cramped space beneath the stage and barely room for a man to stand upright. The only light was that which came from the backroom of the hall. Not much entered the basement from the door that gave access. There was just about enough light though to see the sheen of some liquid on the cement floor. Nolan, who had entered first, bent down and rubbed his fingers in this and then went back to the door to get a better idea of what it was that he had touched. The crimson was beginning to turn brown, but it was clear to both young men that blood had been shed here and no more than a few hours ago. Andrew Nolan said, ‘You want I should go and find the others, the deputies I mean, and bring ’em here?’

  ‘I don’t think we’ve time,’ replied Clancy slowly. ‘I reckon as things will come to a point any minute. That speech is due in a couple of hours. Let’s have a look round here, see what’s what.’

  It didn’t take long for the two of them to unearth, in the first instance, the bloody corpse of Tom Parker. Soon after that, they established by the marks on the dusty floor that two heavy objects had been dragged across the basement. These proved to be carboys full to the very brim of some grey liquid. Clancy said suddenly, ‘It might be a right good idea were we to move clear of these here. I’ve a notion they might hold enough nitroglycerine to blow us to kingdom come.’

  Chapter 9

  Deputy Nolan might have been a few years older than Clancy, but he recognized in the other man something that he lacked, although he could not have put into words just what that might be. At all events, he looked to Clancy for guidance, saying, ‘What d’you say? We wait here for them as killed Tom?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I say. There’s six of them in total. We keep our pistols out, I’d say we could surprise them when they come back for their nitro.’

  ‘You think they will?’