Kings

KINGS

by

J. Clayton Rogers

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Book of Judges, Chapter 21, Verse 25

PROLOGUE

Curtis' hands were bound to the saddlehorn.  Caesar and O'Hara were to either side of him, also mounted.  Up ahead, Van Doren peered into the dark.  Elijah, dark prophet, was whispering to him.

Curtis once held a mystical belief in the allegiance of property.  Whether his five hundred acres near the Sabine, his cotton gin, his cowhide whip, or Elijah.  The brand of ownership was the bond of fealty.  Van Doren had either terrorized or bribed Elijah into acting as his spy.  Did that make him Van Doren's property?  If humans could be had for a receipt, why not loyalty?

He had bought Elijah ten years ago, when he still owned prime bottom on the Peedee.  He'd traveled to Washington to buy a coffel of slaves.  At that time, it was a city of incomparable bargains.  The cotton and tobacco plantations of Maryland and Virginia had gone bankrupt, their soil exhausted.  The administrative center of the Land of Liberty became the slave trading capital of the world as slavemasters dumped their chattels on the market.  Elijah was from southern Virginia, a region once fertile and productive.  Now, Nat Turner's old killing ground produced only cheap, excess slaves.  Some prospective buyers were concerned Nat's bad seed might be in them.

Geography.  History.  Great moments on lonely roads.  Insignificant in the strange blacksmith-and-iron stench of fear.  Curtis could see little in the dark.

He glanced at O'Hara, the most probable executioner.  Blood still flowed from the side of his face.  His skin had been neatly sliced from mid-ear to the base of his jaw, a livid mousy mass of skin and beard.  A bullwhip wound inflicted by Curtis when the three men jumped him in the barn.  O'Hara had wanted to kill him then and there.

Van Doren and Elijah ended their discussion and rode back cautiously.  The ranks of the Knights had been mauled by years of night riding.  The chevaliers especially had had more than their share of bumps to the head, bruises and broken necks.  Thrown riders often were not found until day.  Texas was unfamiliar territory to the men who had come for Curtis.  They had to take extra care.

The moon came out, revealing tall stalks by the road.  The corn tassels wiggled like tentacled maggots.  But the moon itself was pure.  A golden circle.  That was what the Knights called themselves now: the Knights of the Golden Circle.  Not the circle of the moon, but this night it might as well have been.  Curtis was a Knight.  So were his captors, though they were higher in the Order: chevaliers.  But there was no noblesse oblige here. He was still going to die.

Two eyes came up white as the mouth of a water moccasin.  Each seemed to lick the darkness.  Van Doren by night.  By day, he wore an expression of sharp-faced acceptance of all that was due him.

He had flushed his prey.  But there was bigger game in the offing.  Curtis wondered if he really believed what he was doing was best for the Knights.  Did he worship the Cause?  Faith could condone the most unpalatable greed.  Curtis knew that better than anyone.  He felt his heart go voiceless.  Numbness.

Bick— Fear choked him momentarily.  Bickley can't know about this.  He would never allow this.

Van Doren ignored the comment.  He had not come all this way to discuss George Bickley, the oafish founder of the Knights.

Moon dog, Caesar Arnold observed.  A voice like ice strained through a bunghole.  There was a crisp, snappish air about him, as though he was trying to emulate Van Doren's cold efficiency.  The result was a fussy bureaucrat who hid his fear efficiently.  Moon dog.  Caesar was predicting the weather.  Possible rain on the morrow.  A bit of relief.  At least a small part of the near future was fairly certain.  But Curtis did not look up to confirm the prediction. His fate was determined. The stars no longer mattered.

'Gentle in matter, resolute in execution.'  That's the watchword?  That's what you told us in the barn.

Staring into the dark, Curtis barely registered Van Doren's shadowy outline.  Yes.

And the countersign?  The one I give Jouhaux?

The pleasure of vengeance surged through Curtis.  He had arranged an alternate countersign with Jouhaux months earlier.  A danger signal.  'Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.'

Van Doren struck a lucifer and looked at his watch.  He's expecting a lone rider.  If you hear shots, come hell for leather.

After telling Elijah to remain with O'Hara and Caesar, he retraced his path up the road and disappeared onto the path Elijah had shown him.  Hooves bit into the dirt and stones, then faded into dull thudding, like a body being exhumed.

Curtis noted Elijah catching him in a furtive moonlit glance.  The chevaliers had brought the slave straight out the field, without giving him the chance to remove his kneepads or even the long cotton duck sack draped around his neck.  How long had he been spying for Van Doren?  Loyalty could not be written on a man's face.  Were his other slaves a part of the conspiracy?  Slaves were ever-present, difficult to notice because always there.  A world of ears.  How much had they heard?

Enough to condemn him.

Was that regret in Elijah's eyes?  Or fear?  Fear, no doubt.  Though slaves were major capital investments in cotton country, leaving him alive would be a dangerous extravagance.

They had been friends, once—at least as close as master and slave could become.  Curtis taught Elijah how to read, to muse on great matters, to use his mind on things immaterial, if also godless.  The white man fancied he'd imparted to Elijah some of his second sight; something that breathed life into life.  A brief, warm pity coursed through him.  He was certain they would go to Hell together.

Caesar's horse nickered apprehensively.  It sensed the humans were planning some outrage.  There was a quavery hum of distant water.  The branch of the Sabine where Curtis was to have met Jouhaux.  The sound would have been a comfort any other time.  Now, it was a running reminder of impending confrontation.  It provoked a nameless dread in Caesar.  As though Curtis had drummed up an army of murmurous spirits to his defense.  Earlier, an unearthly roar from the nearby marsh shattered his repose.

"El lager, O'Hara mocked.  You spent half your life on the Ogeechee, and never heard one?"

No, Caesar asserted.  Like all of his neighbors, he took O'Hara for a short-talker and long-liar.  An alligator roar?  That loudly, so hauntingly rich in nocturnal blood?

Dribs and drabs of misinformation came naturally to O'Hara back home in Georgia.  A solitary Irishman hedged-in by Scotch, English and French-Huguenot descendants, lies were his way of keeping company.  But no one dared called him out.  O'Hara kept a spot permanently reserved at Screven's Ferry in South Carolina, across the Savannah River, so that the State of Georgia could not interfere with his duels.  No one in Liberty County had a steadier hand.

High clouds mustered around the moon.  They created a halflight.  It was the shank time of spies.  The air was a gumbo of tension.  Yet, oddly, briefly, Curtis felt privileged.  He did not know why.  Perhaps because salutes were due to those who were about to die.

A shot.  Muffled, but unmistakable.

O'Hara held the reins of Curtis' horse.  When he darted forward, the prisoner nearly toppled off.  Caesar drew his pistol and pointed it at Elijah.  You too!

Elijah did not hesitate.  There was still hope that, if he obeyed, he would be allowed to live.

Hoofbeats ahead.  A rider emerged onto the road.  Caped.  Truly a bat out of hell.

Van Doren! O'Hara shouted.

Yes!  Don't shoot!

But it was not Van Doren's voice.

Caesar fired.  The rider swerved.  Dust up, scattering in the moonlight like lost gold.

O'Hara fired.

The rider fell.  His horse continued.  O'Hara thrust the reins of Curtis' horse into Caesar's hands, and then lit out after the bolting animal.

Dismounting, Caesar drew his second pistol.  Single shot, elaborately carved stock, elegant death.  Curtis wondered who he would shoot first if he and Elijah made a simultaneous attempt to escape.  But the slave was frozen in place, staring at the shadowed spot where the rider had fallen.  Perhaps he was recalling all the stories slaves whispered in their quarters: the Knights of the Golden Circle.  White man's doings, white man's death.  Still a prayer for the inconsequential Negro.  If Curtis tried to escape, he would do so alone.

Caesar could see this, also.  He dismounted and tossed the reins of Curtis' horse into the Negro’s hands.  He worked his way slowly up the road, using his feet to prod the shadows for the body.

O'Hara returned with the stranger's horse.  Where's Van Doren? he asked heavily.  The excitement of the night-chase had stolen his breath.  He dismounted, securing his and the stranger's horse to a tree stump.

Finally, the marching clouds uncovered the moon and they spotted a human form prostrate on the ground.  They rushed forward.

Dead?

He's quiet.  I can't see his face.  Drag him out.

Someone was riding slowly up the path.  Caesar's breath shortened.  He was drenched by a sudden sweat.  Though his shot had not been the one to bring Jouhaux down, he'd been a participant in murder.  An initiate into one of the world's older rites.

They waited, breath held.  If it was a trap, Jouhaux might not be alone.  Caesar had the odd thought that if the man at his feet was not dead and suddenly grabbed his leg, he would simply drop dead—and thank God for it.

Van Doren appeared.  He was leaning across his pommel.

Are you shot?

He pushed me off my horse.  My back...  Van Doren clenched his teeth as Caesar and O'Hara helped him out of the saddle.  You got him?

Might's well be dead, said O'Hara.

Van Doren gave him a glance of irritation.  O'Hara never tried to be cryptic, but that was often how his words came across.  As he leaned over the body, pain gripped his back, as if someone was trying to break his spine with wire cutters.  He suppressed his gasp and struck a lucifer match.

O'Hara made a startled noise.  He leaned down and wiped at the bloody face with his bare hand.  God-be-damned...

Yes, said Van Doren.  He pointed at Curtis.  Bring him here.

They took Curtis off the gelding and brought him across the road.  Van Doren struck another match.  Is this 'Monsieur Jouhaux'? he asked sarcastically.

Mexico, the ambition.  A great piece to gather into the Golden Circle: the Caribbean.  The entire conquest of which was the goal of the Knights.  The golden Caribbean, with a horde of cheap slave labor to countervail the industrial blunderers of the North.  Already, the first pieces were in place.  Large tracts of land had been purchased by the Steamship Company of I, the corporate guise of the Knights.  By drawing from their enormous treasury, the sum of dues from tens of thousands of Brothers, the Knights now owned parts of South American and Latin American coastline.  If the locals proved unfit, slaves could be imported from Africa.  A common pattern from the past.  The indigenous population exterminated, replaced by hardy laborers.

The largest step would be the conquest of Mexico.  Zach Taylor and Winfield Scott had shown how easily it could be accomplished during the Mexican War.  Now that Mexico was racked by civil war, the plum would be all the easier to pick.  Thousands of well-armed Knights were preparing to journey down the Mississippi for transshipment to Texas, where their army would be organized.  Supplies had been stockpiled along the Gulf.  Scattered and hidden because Jeremiah Black, President Buchanan's Secretary of State, had gotten wind of the operation and sent agents to Texas to stop them.  If he lopped off one source of supply, the Knights would have other bases to fall back on.

Curtis was one of the Knights' advance agents.  He'd been caught dickering with foreigners who had their own designs on Mexico.  Any invading army would find the stockpiles useful, and Curtis had been planning to play purveyor for the French.  At least, it was made to seem that Napoleon III was behind the plot to rob the Knights.

The Englishman, Caesar said, glancing over O'Hara's brute shoulder at the body.

That's what we were led to believe back in Savannah, said Van Doren.  "Who was he really, Curtis?  He was our friend.  How did he become yours?"

When Van Doren lit another match, Jouhaux's body quivered eerily in the light, as though it was trying to struggle up.

Suddenly, Curtis was crushed by the inadequacy for his impending execution.  How cheap, how remote from reality, to die for money.

Caesar and O'Hara searched the saddlebags on the dead man's horse, then Jouhaux's pockets.  They found assorted currency.  Mostly old New Orleans dixies and worthless inflated bills printed by the revolutionary government in Mexico.  But also some louis d'or, amounting to what must have been a thousand dollars' worth of gold.  In the opposite saddlebag they found a large copy of Boswell's Life of Johnson.

Flip through the pages.

Caesar did as Van Doren ordered.  Only yellow, dog-eared pages, sans ipse dixit.  A streak of pain crossed Van Doren's face as he turned to Curtis.  I'll ask again.  Who was he?  How long ago did he contact you?  Longer than we thought, I'll warrant.  Or your jig.

Kent Stables, said O'Hara, inspecting the brand on the nag Jouhaux had ridden.  Port Arthur.

Van Doren shot a deadly glance at Elijah, but spoke to Curtis.  Your boy thought Jouhaux would be coming overland.

Doesn't take a blathering genius, O'Hara commented, noosing the reins of the nag between his fingers.  He came by ship.  Hired the nag in town.

Maybe he was a frog.  But a ship can come from anywhere.  Paris.  London.  Washington...  Who was he, Curtis?

I'm not sure.

'Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.'  That was a warning to him, wasn't it?  When was that arranged?

Curtis looked at the ground.

Mount up.  We'll take him back to his manse.  With his wife and children at hand, maybe we can improve his memory.

Elijah had the reins of Curtis' horse wrapped tightly around his hand.  He dared not risk the horse bolting.  His roan expressed its rider's concern with a shake of its poll.

Curtis lifted himself into the saddle.  As O'Hara again bound his hands to the pommel, the prisoner looked starkly at his former slave.  Seeing was difficult.  His right eye was swollen from the blow O'Hara had given him when they captured him.  Elijah could not bear his gaze.  He warded it off with a reassurance: Don't fret, Mista Curtis.  They swore me they wouldn't hurt you.

A hundred and forty thousand will be washed white in the Blood of the Lamb, Curtis answered.  You won't be among them, my friend, no matter how hard you try.

This ain't a fucking Synod, O'Hara snorted as he finished binding Curtis' hands.  Wake up, Congo.  Didn't he ever break your back?  Whip you on a hot day?  He stooped and drew a knife from his boot.  The foot-long blade glinted dully, like a reflection from a broken mirror.  No nigger loves a white man.  Here's your chance.  Cut him up.

Caesar made a pleading gesture to Van Doren.  O'Hara's chuckle was like a sucking wound.  Georgia boy far from home.  He nudged Curtis and gave a disparaging nod towards Caesar.  Curtis was chilled by this kind of humor.  The man who most wanted to kill him was treating him like a member of a hunt club tweaking a novice.  It seemed that, for O'Hara, the only bonds worth making were those easily broken and reassembled, like a cheap hat trick.  Georgia boy took a bad turn in the dark.  Can't find his way back to law school.

Van Doren was preoccupied with the pain in his back.  Not now, he said to O'Hara.  Yet even he sensed the shift in reality.  In the scumbling night distinctions between master and slave blurred.  Caesar was the only one not to understand.  O'Hara's animal games were from a different realm, an earlier, earthier myth.

They did not ride far.  Curtis knew he would never make it home.  O'Hara was too maddened by the whip wound Curtis had dealt him when they took him.  He rode close, banging his knees against the prisoner's, cursing lowly between hummed snatches of "We Are Passing Away".

He won't talk, O'Hara muttered.  He's the chill of death on him.  What he says don't matter.  He knows he's going to die.

O'Hara!  Van Doren tried to spur forward.

Too late.

A long time coming for O'Hara.  This was not immediate hatred, but the sum of years of frustration.  Forays against runaway slaves, harassment of lukewarm supporters, the midnight binges of men who had nothing better to do than race drunkenly across cultivated fields—none satisfied his deep urge to physically find and strike the reasons for uncertainty.

Had O'Hara thought about it, he might have realized nothing had changed.  That he was once again persecuting a Brother.  But he could not ignore the second crime: Curtis' failure to share the wealth.

Elijah was perplexed.  Jouhaux was the foreigner's name.  Who should know better than the slave who had acted as a messenger between Curtis and the Frenchy's agents in Beaumont?  He would have seen through a lie.  White men always gave themselves away in moments of indigestion or ofay hauteur.  In scope of deception Elijah felt he could easily tread water with these men.  It was in sheer power and dreadful historical luck that he drowned.

He kept his eyes down, on the roan's mane, not wanting to see O'Hara taunt Curtis further.  But his head bolted up when he heard the nasty click.  He watched, paralyzed.

Curtis began to turn.  O'Hara fired.  The barrel was an inch from its target.  A thick, varied spume vomited up.  Something thudded into the ground near the roan's front hooves.  Curtis' gelding reared at the blast.  True apparition.  A half-headed beast raised on one that was terrified.

Elijah wanted to let go the reins, sure that death would race up their length and nab him, too.  The roan started to back away.  Then a wild tug at his arm told him he was still latched to demon mortality.  He had wrapped the reins around his forearm.

Don't let go! Van Doren shouted.

Damn fool.  Did he think Curtis was still alive?  With black-fingered strength, Elijah hauled the gelding down, drawing himself and the roan forward.  The gelding turned and brushed against him.  Curtis' bound body was squeezed between the horses as the surcingle slipped around.  The gelding bucked.  Curtis' head whiplashed.  Elijah looked into the empty sockets of his dead owner.  Something weirdly viscous across the nose of the corpse, like the track of a snail.

Horrified, Elijah frantically unraveled the reins from his wrist and drew away.  Riding up hard, Caesar stopped the gelding from dashing off.

Damn you!  Even Van Doren knew better than to strike O'Hara.  But he could still face him down.  The eyeglass moon struggled free of clouds long enough for their eyes to meet.  O'Hara looked away.  Caesar was astonished.  He had not thought anyone could stare down the Irishman.

Elijah heeled the flanks of his roan.  Churned dirt barked beneath him.  All the sounds of escape, but none of the results.  He never knew who fired the shot.  It ripped volcanically through his lung and imbedded itself in a shattered rib.  He fell, gasping, the vicious jeremiad of pain in his chest out-shouting the pain of the fall.  No solace in silence.  He could hear the creek.  The gilled choir had leapt from the Sabine and was racing bare-toothed for their meaty portion, their song a hiss of contempt:

Obey one master, and you betray another.

***

The only ecstasy in the foregone is if it is taken one step beyond, to the apocalyptic.  The Republicans won the presidential election because the opposition was so badly split.  Too late for everyone, the opposition fused.  Perversely, with this late unity came the avalanche of secessions.  America was at war with itself.

Curtis and Elijah were five months dead when, early in December 1860, Captain John R. Baylor organized a company of one thousand Texans.  For a buffalo hunt, he said.  Others believed he intended to seize the San Antonio arsenal.  Citizens of Union ilk jumped in alarm.  Baylor was a well-known secessionist.  Why get involved in the coming brawl in the east? the Unionists asked.  To ensure neutrality, they called on General David E. Twiggs, commander, Department of Texas, to take preventive measures against Baylor and his lot.  Twiggs called up the Alamo Rifles, an Irish company, a German company, some citizen companies—and several hundred members of the Knights of the Golden Circle.  To their dismay, the Unionists discovered where Twigg's loyalty lay.  And he made no pretence.  He was not out to hunt buffalo.

At this time, Van Doren, Caesar and O'Hara were on the other side of the Mississippi.  They met with George Bickley in Baton Rouge.  Bickley, Supreme Grand Imperial Potentate.  Bickley, founder of an organization variously known as the 'Invisible Empire', the 'Knights of the Golden Circle', the 'Order of the Golden Circle', or when circumspection dictated, simply the 'Order'.

As Mrs. Bickley bruised the leaves for their mint juleps, Dr. Bickley spoke to Van Doren.  There would be a slight change in plans.  Said Dr. Bickley, We will have to stop off at the Capitol in Washington on our way to Mexico.

Van Doren still suffered from the effects of his fall during his encounter with 'Monsieur Jouhaux'.  Dr. Bickley had applied chloroform liniment to his back.  The sickly sweet odor drifted across the veranda, making the natural southern glow softer, more meditative.

Bickley might have gained some second sight through his omnivorous reading.  Beyond mere garnering of facts, he might have accidentally sipped the pensive nectar in classic literature and history.  Did sensitivity for human futures lure him from his optimism when he looked at the bright scar down O'Hara's face?

But it was Van Doren who most concerned him.  His ambition was like a harsh tide tearing at the political shoreline Bickley had so arduously nurtured.  It had been six years since they'd first met.  Van Doren's desire to test his individual freedom against the dull mentality of the masses—and especially that intellectual poseur, George Bickley—was entering a new phase.  Compromise was thrown up, replaced by unfeigned animosity.  Bickley had heard the rumors about Van Doren's unsanctioned operations throughout the South.  Some said he was responsible for the murder of several chevaliers who had mulcted the Knight's treasury.  Would war improve, or prove the worst in the man?  Speculating idly on the nature of loyalty, he commented:

In Plutarch's account of Popicola, the Roman conspirators sealed their allegiance by swearing an oath over the exposed entrails of a dead man.

We've already had our...introduction, Caesar said nervously.  A reference to the Knights' standard initiation rite, which consisted of dark oaths and timber rattlers.

O'Hara saluted him with his glass.  When's it you start at Mt. Holyoke?

Caesar bristled at this mention of the famous college for young women.  But he dared not confront O'Hara.  That reputation, that visage, that scar...  No, he dare not.

Is there a point to your observation? Van Doren asked the doctor, a little dreamy from the liniment warming his spine.

I wasn't expressing doubt.  But what we are planning requires the utmost loyalty from the men involved.  Perhaps a more profound indoctrination—

You aren't seriously suggesting we—!

Why not? O'Hara jumped in, and Bickley saw his mistake.  O'Hara was truly enamored by the idea of swearing fealty over a corpse.

I believe both of you gentlemen are missing my point, Bickley said.

From the river came a chorus of steam whistles.  More troops coming in.  The state of Louisiana had ordered Major Hastings, Commander of the Barracks, to evacuate his garrison by the end of the week.  Hastings protested he could not leave unless an overwhelming show of force made the need obvious and unavoidable.  In compliance with this wish, thousands of soldiers from New Orleans were disembarking at the Baton Rouge piers.

Bickley and the other Knights stood at the iron rail overlooking the Barracks.  A company of Zouaves marched brightly up the street, their red pantaloons adding a mystical Arabian fireglow to the hot air.  Unlike most of the Southern volunteers, they were fully armed.  Yet in lieu of burnt gunpowder were the scents of jasmine and honeysuckle.  Federal regulars sat on the compound wall, alternately clapping and jeering at the parade.  The newborn enemies were not reconciled to fighting.  They mingled and joshed.

That won't last long, Van Doren opined.

Again, Bickley furtively studied his compatriots.  The infant Confederate Congress had already announced men who owned over twenty slaves need not fight in the army.  Which meant all three of them—Van Doren, O'Hara, Caesar—were excluded from compulsory service.  Yet all three had joined the fight before the fight was known.  Why?  From where did Van Doren's constant, unmotivated ambition derive?  At what point did Caesar become a slave to the desire to please his superiors?  What ancient Irish battlefield gave birth to O'Hara's enduring hatreds?

***

Death would end in more death.  What began on an insignificant road in Texas would end in New York City, on a half-deserted plantation in Mississippi, on a dark plank road in Ohio, in a prison yard in Indiana, on the balcony at Ford's Theater.  Places crowded or empty, but all filled with an ancient, wise isolation, the last knowing blink of a human soul.

Bickley believed the soul never died.  It only flinched.  But what could he know of the soul?  Or of sequence?

For the story has many possible beginnings.  From which dream had Bickley drawn inspiration for the Knights?  The idea for the Order had come in the form of a revelation.  True inspiration was not born in logic.  That only came later, when he was compelled to translate the dream into reality.  The Knights was an imperfectly glued lump made from the perfect pieces of a dream.

Nor would the multitude of beginnings conclude with certainty.  One could say this story ends on an ice-bound expedition to the Arctic.  Or in a darkened mineshaft, with a man dying at the hands of the Molly Maguires.  Or that it ends tenuously, as a woman fights off memories while holding a book in her hand, trying to forget the immediate past in a past far more remote.

The right men are killed for the wrong reasons.  The wrong men are killed in a good cause.  That is how this story goes.  Allan Pinkerton is a principal character, and sometimes his motives were very obscure.  Perhaps his death is the most fitting of all.  While taking his daily walk, he stumbled, bit his tongue, and eventually died of gangrene.  But that did not happen until 1884, nineteen years after the end of the Civil War, many lies and a long life later.

But he could have told Bickley the reason for the qualms that assailed him as he sipped his mint julep, watched the Creole Guards swagger below, and surreptitiously studied O'Hara's scar. Pinkerton's secret voice, wafting down from the future and low across the Mississippi, could have told Bickley that the only true human motivations are fear and ambition, that history is confusion, that verdicts are often unjust, and that juries, even when they judge right, are whimsical at best.

PART I

ONE

As a Scot, Plums was in the habit of squeezing blood from stones.  Howard Stuyvesant was a rock that bled with reliable consistency.

No doubt, said Howard.

Plums accepted this with a brisk nod.

The code name was meant to mystify, not harmonize with reality.  Howard did not laugh when told of Pinkerton's nom de guerre.  The chief detective was on the verge of lifting his ten-year old agency from national renown to something like national power.  When opportunity knocked you fought to get the door open, fought to keep it open.  No time for laughter.

At the moment, nothing seemed very humorous.  There loomed a ludicrous crisis that overclouded the ominous potential in the news Howard had brought him.  Philadelphia, city of brotherly love, was not neglecting its sisters.  One of them, at least.  Despite the great racket coming from the Continental Hotel's lobby and ballroom, Pinkerton and Howard could clearly discern the moans of a woman in the throes of lovemaking in the room next to theirs.  And with Nuts due any moment!

Haeing a trollop at a convention!  Everything on the neb, and a foul whore keening it all to hell!  He stopped, cocked an ear.  Had she heard him?  Would she take heed?

But there was only the barest pause in the rhythmic horror.  Either she had not heard, or she was beyond caring.  Again, the chief detective paced the room.  He could not bring himself to yell louder or bang the wall.  In a fine cracking city like this.  A fancy woman!  Must be.  No decent woman'd cow like that.  He had lowered his voice, surrendering his moral indignation in the hope that uninterrupted lust would run its course before Nuts arrived.

Bachelor Howard did not share the disgust of his boss, a solid family man.  Surprise, yes.  A certain impression of Quaker purity was shattered, even if the pair in the next room were not Friends at all, but Democrats who felt no desire to join the rowdy Republican celebration downstairs.  Well, he mused, the crack in the Liberty Bell did not exactly illustrate flawless metallurgy.

The door suddenly swung open and Norman Judd stepped into the room.  He nodded, and then stood aside as Nuts entered.  Because Howard had seen the campaign pictures of him, he immediately recognized Abraham Lincoln.  But they had done nothing to prepare him for the exuberant giant who strode in and put all else in the background with the absolute oddity of his presence.  And it was not often Howard met someone he did not have to literally look down upon.

Uttering surprise, Lincoln ignored Pinkerton, went over and stood in front of Howard.  By Heaven, it almost looks...here, back to back. Lincoln took him by the shoulders, twisted him around, and posed himself heel-to-heel to him.  What say, Norman?

I'd say you're well nigh even.

With an expression of happy determination, Lincoln said, The boots.  Has to be those peg boots.  Down to your stockings.  Don't fret, sir.  I shall remove my high heels.  He sat and began working off his size 14s.  I wouldn't take unfair advantage of you.  Nature has done that.  Not many six-fours have been coined.  The air became thick as his feet came out.

Dazed, Howard looked at the others, saw his bafflement equaled by Pinkerton, and then did as the president-elect requested.  Within a minute they were back-to-back again.  Gentlemen? Lincoln inquired.

I do believe Mr. Stuyvesant has a slight edge.  Judd had heard the pair in the next room and wanted to keep up the minor controversy.  A political supporter who had become something of a bodyguard by default, Judd had cautioned Lincoln that all the precautions necessary to his safety might cause titters across the country.  Balding, slightly thickset, Judd’s usually kind eyes now flared in alarm.  Those titters might become raucous laughter—or horror—if the public learned the peripheral details.

By jing, I hope it's not as bad as that.  Lincoln glanced edgewise at the back of Howard's head.  No, I believe your original estimate hit it.  I'm picked and plucked.  He returned to the chair and donned his boots.

As Howard imitated this action, he exchanged looks with Pinkerton.  It's true, his glance said.  We've elected a buffoon.

Still seated, Lincoln took stock of his twin in height.  For a moment, his eyes glazed over.  When he brought them back into focus, he perceived Pinkerton's and Judd's embarrassment.  Then he heard the cause.  What's the matter, gentlemen?  We must all occasionally stuff the sock.  He braced his knees together, clasped his hands over them, and laughed tremendously.

Pinkerton tried on a grin more wan than worldly.  Howard regained his feet, looked longingly at the door leading to the hall.

The published details of the president-elect's past were abundant, but selective.  Former rail-splitter.  Boatman.  Store clerk.  Lawyer.  Congressman.  Weekend soldier.  Raised in a log cabin.

What they did not say was that in the confines of a log cabin—at one time no more than an unfinished hovel shared by two families—one heard all the grunts of procreation, from conception to birth.  The outlook Lincoln inherited was casual in the extreme.  Among the pranks of his youth there was the night he'd juggled brides after a double-wedding, the grooms nearly making an awful mistake in the darkened bedrooms.  Sex was easy, though some said love was a horror for Mr. Lincoln.

The love sounds halted.  Not enough for Pinkerton and Howard, who had heard them so crudely defined by the most powerful man in the country—lame duck Buchanan did not count.  Howard thought, When we're finished here we can go down to the lumber yard and stick splinters through our hands.

Abruptly, Lincoln seemed to regret his indiscretion.  Not so much the comment, but his unfeelingness towards his hosts.  He stood.  I've been shamefully neglectful.  Gentlemen...  He approached Pinkerton and Howard, shook hands with each.  His dark deepset eyes made the jump from humor to an unsettling, inappropriate kindness.  Confident lewdness was miraculously transformed to confidence imparted, belief in great things, the conviction that the impossible knots and gnarls would be worked out.

Howard was not so much reassured as confused.  The enormous hand that took his was noticeably swollen by the thousand firm handshakes notched on the campaign trail.  As Pinkerton spoke, Howard sought to unravel the enigma by studying the head resting unsteadily on a dark broadcloth suit and high collar.

Uneven metaphors befitted an uneven countenance.  Lincoln's hair was lightly salted with gray, though not enough to preserve dignity for the ears, unashamedly, gigantically alert.  His eyes were watchful cave animals.  His mouth swept dramatically across his face, both ends trying to race to the back of his head.  His nevus was like a bark on rough seas.  An inverted 'V' began at the apex of his super-prominent nose and continued in two bifurcating lines aptly ill-conceived; the Maker had shoved in that third of the face without bothering to hide the seams.

A light note: he wore a new beard.  A letter from one Grace Bedell, received in October of the previous year, suggested to Lincoln that the ladies would be more taken with him if he allowed his whiskers to grow.  He accepted her advice.  During his circuitous trip from Springfield, he had occasion to meet the lady and gave her a light peck on the cheek.  Southern papers called it a kiss and denounced his ape-like lasciviousness.  They neglected to mention that the lady's father was present—not to mention most of the population of Westfield, New York—and that the lady was eleven years old.

Mother Norman dreamed of some trouble down the line and hired you to look into it.  Have you found any?  Please tell me you haven't stirred any up!  Another ounce will break this Bactrian.

Sir, said Pinkerton, I regret to say there's plots abrew west and withershins.  There's a number of types as intends you never reach Washington alive.

TWO

The telegraph operator in Wilmington was startled by the sudden interruption in traffic from Philadelphia.  No warning, no signal that there was a storm, standard practice when there was a chance communications could be cut.  Just, TO PARKER STOP WILL INSURE SHIPMENT ONLY ON RECEIPT OF FULL PAYMENT STOP CURRENT UNREST IN MARYLAND MAKES CREDIT UNCERTAIN STOP MOSES SAYS—

The operator tapped out an inquiry.  Nothing.  Moses would have to wait for word on his profit or his loss.  The telegrapher felt uneasy, as if an Eleventh Commandment had been suspended in transit.  He drew himself deeper into his sweater as he shuffled to the stove and poured a cup of coffee.  Wakefulness was a necessity this evening.  Traffic was heavy.  Virginia was on the threshold of seceding.  It seemed possible Maryland would go any day, too.  Telegraph operators across the country had the best seats to all the nonsense.  It didn't make sense to secede in winter, when people should be warming their feet on a warm hearth.

He took a small chunk of meat and stepped out onto the station platform.  A pregnant black cat with white markings hopped up.  The operator tossed the scrap, but she ignored it and dashed across the platform.  There was a loud feline complaint as he quickly nipped inside and slammed the door.  You can't have them in here!  If you're thick enough to have your kits in winter, that's your bed of thorns!

He spent the next five minutes wondering about the strangers he'd seen during his brief excursion.  Four of them.  Two with lanterns, standing by the tracks.  He wiped the fog off the inside of the window above the potbellied stove and peered out.  What were they up to?

A man entered the office in a burst of cold air.  Closing the door, he tried to knock the chill out of his clothes and bones.

Line's out north, said the operator.

And Baltimore?

The operator tapped out the standard identification signal.  No response south, either.  I feel like a dog howling at the night.  He cocked a wary eye at the stranger, who did not seem particularly upset.  You heard anything?

About secession?

Secession and what else?

Maybe the freeze cracked something.

Do you know those men out there?

You mean they aren't flagmen?  His tone betrayed his lie.

Again, the operator turned to the key, tapped out PHIL KEY WILM STOP O'ROURKE STOP, and was on his third repetition when he heard scratching at the door.  Before he could shout a warning, the stranger had opened it.  The cat darted in.  The stranger leaned down.  After a cautious sniff, the animal accepted his advance, bowing beneath his hand, bouncing her rotund belly against his shin.  The operator was annoyed that he was not recognized as her true benefactor.  I'll not cosher you, you witch's pet.

She gave the telegrapher an uneasy glance.  Grinning, the stranger clucked over the cat, called her Pasht.  Medium height, white skin, womanish hands, brown hair, eyes hazel—seemed to flash darkly not from anger, but from past brooding and present enthusiasm.  Since he'd started taking police notices over the wire, the operator had begun noticing things like that.  Keen observation might one day win him a reward.  He did not like the man—enthusiasm made him suspicious.

How long have you been a key operator?

Long as the wire's been up.  'Bout ten years.

It's a lot harder to shoot the messenger bearing bad news, these days.

I wouldn't know—  The operator bolted upright.  Hey!  He jumped out of his chair and ran outside, his feet beating a frantic tattoo on the raised platform.  The train!  I haven't cleared ahead!  The northbound might—

A hand on his shoulder.  Uh...it's all right.  It's taken care of.

As the train hooted past, one of the men down the track signaled with a lantern.  It was fortunate there were no travelers waiting.  The train didn't miss a click.

I won't be held responsible!

John Pynchon suddenly did not seem so enthusiastic.  I'm sorry...you were thinking people might be endangered...  He pressed a dollar into the telegrapher’s hand, then went down the track and joined the other four strangers.  They disappeared behind a warehouse.

The young station runner returned from delivering a telegram to Jake's Hardware.  He flapped into the office like a little jaybird.  In a second he flapped back out.  Mista O'Rourke!  Come quick!  You're havin' kittens!

The operator was not surprised.  All told, it was the most appropriate insult for the moment.

THREE

As they approached Wilmington, Howard went to the forward passenger car—the cheapest, because much of the engine smoke settled here even with the windows closed.  A woman who had sole possession of a bench seat made room for him and he battled his legs into the narrow space.

Sly Pinkerton.  He understood a man could be having his arm amputated, and the presence of an attractive woman would remove half the care.  The men in this car would have a difficult time re-directing their thoughts to politics if they ever found out Nuts was aboard.  They could not hear Howard's lowered voice over the ratchety hum of the rails.

You've outdone yourself, Hes.  You're a real Hebrew princess.

Wilmington came up.  Hesper Pynchon wiped off the window mist and squinted out.  There's little brother.  Wave.  But neither did.  They weren't supposed to know him.  And Howard was busy scanning the car for anyone kicking up a fuss about not stopping.  There were some murmurs, but that was all.  They were all bound for Washington.  The engineer's ostensible mistake was their convenience.

Lord, I wonder what he told him, said Hesper, seeing the shocked expression on the stationmaster's face.  After a last glance at John, she added, "He seems so...exposed..."

He can warm himself in the shed.

Hesper smiled, then pointed out the men further down the track waving signal lanterns.  All clear.

So far.

Hesper turned in her seat.  Didn't the Laird say everything was going to be all right?  A number of agency operatives referred to Pinkerton as the Laird.

Prior to their departure, Pinkerton had received information tending to give the lie to all the alleged plots against Lincoln's life.  Certainly, there had been plenty of drunken, inconsequential anger: shouts of rebellion; vows of revenge against Black Republicans; unsubtle hints of assassination.

But Howard had edged close to quieter, more sinister whispers.  Arrangements were being made.  Somewhere.  By someone.  That was temerity enough to invoke precautions.

He gave Hesper a friendly nudge and returned to the sleeper car.

Well? said Pinkerton.

We keep going.

As Howard stuffed himself into the narrow compartment, Lincoln complained, This is overloading the crib!  He struck the cedar rack above him as he threw up his hands.  It's a good thing you're a head shorter than us giants, Mr. Pinkerton.  Else I'd be picking my nose with my knees.

Lincoln had insisted on speaking to the Pennsylvania Legislature at Harrisburg, returning that afternoon to Philadelphia for more meetings before continuing his trip south.  If Pinkerton was having second thoughts as to the seriousness of the plots against Lincoln's life, the president-elect's respect for them had grown.  William Seward and Winfield Scott had both sent warnings.  Threats against his life had become almost commonplace.  But when the senator from New York and the commander in chief of the army were worried, he thought it time to take heed.

Armed with pistols, derringers and knives, Ward Lamon, friend and former law partner of the president-elect, had escorted the disguised Lincoln from the Continental Hotel to the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore railway station.  One of Pinkerton's female operatives had reserved a berth for her 'sick brother'.  The southbound moved off in the dark.

After a while, Lincoln began to sulk.  I can't crack my bones in here.  He removed the soft wool cap Pinkerton had talked him into wearing and kneaded it fiercely, as if it was a small malevolent creature that deserved to have its neck wrung.  The ominousness of the warnings was wearing off.  Thus far, you've only come up with a single name.  Captain Fernandina.  The cattywampus Captain Fernandina.

Maryland is not a happy state, said Pinkerton from beneath his derby.  He chomped fiercely on his ever-present cigar.

Merry-land should be.  Lincoln peered at the swaying lantern, seemed to consider trying to sleep.  There won't be a war.  This is all a niggle.  The slavers want to take their darkies west.  I'll give them New Mexico so long as we can get a free state north to balance it.  The darkies don't belong in chains, even if they aren't our equals.  But I can't see war on it.

Howard hesitated, then asked, You'll let them secede?

Can't do that.

Howard wondered if he saw the contradiction.  Lincoln was set on avoiding war, had said so publicly.  Yet the states below North Carolina had already seceded and showed no inclination to come back.  The railsplitter seemed to be attempting to will the factions together, keeping reality at bay with his long arms.

Lincoln grew morose and silent.  The emblem of the National Detective Agency was a vigil, open eye, indicative of watchfulness, ever awake.  Pinkerton had the original logo on his desk in Chicago.  His agents were coming to be known as 'private eyes'.  It seemed Lincoln would have liked the eye to go to bed every so often.  Detectives were like lice, knew your movements, made you scratch.

Howard took a stab at lightening the mood by mentioning how difficult it was for him to get clothes that fit.  Lincoln reacted instantly, grinning.  Some folks say I use a pine tree in Springfield to fit out my duds.

Whenever I need a pair of brogans, I go up to Lake Erie and pick out a couple boats.  It was only after he'd spoken that Howard thought he might have been too bold.  It was so difficult to think of this man as president.  And that nose!  The campaign pictures had given no hint of its true dimensions.

As only a fellow Westerner could, Lincoln caught what he was doing and immediately fell in.  His expression dropped into blandness.  Shoot all, when they made my peg boots, all they had to do was lop off the heads of a couple heifers and tan them on the hoof.

There was a tailor in Vandalia...  When I walked in, he took one look at me, kissed his wife and kids goodbye, then went out and shot himself.

We had a suit made for my dear friend, Stephen Douglas.  It was going to be a surprise, but we couldn't find anyone to model it on.  Then I hit on the idea of importin' one of those giant South American toads.  It all worked out, and we had a good gush.  Everything about the suit fit—except the cravat.  Took us a while to figure out why: the toad wasn't croaking when we fitted him out!

Howard was broken, burst out laughing.  Lincoln refrained from expression long enough to cinch his victory, then busted a gut so loudly that, in the confined space, hurt their ears.

As they approached the next town, Pinkerton went up front to check the signals from his operatives shivering by the tracks, and make sure the passengers did not complain too loudly about not stopping.

February 22, 1861.  Abe Lincoln, sixteenth President, first to skulk to his inauguration.  Lincoln sighed, placed the wool hat back on his head.  The compartment was chilly.  How long have you been with Pinkerton, Mr. Stuyvesant?

Seven years.  Ever since the Mississippi murders.

The solving of which had brought Pinkerton national fame.  He had disguised one of his detectives as the murder victim, then convinced the suspect that his ghost had returned to haunt him.  The suspect blew his brains out before the case ever neared trial.

I worked in the Cincinnati hog pens before that.  Mr. Pinkerton was a cooper.

And me a railsplitter.  Guess we've all jumped up.

Or we've been handed a clean slate.

Lincoln looked directly into Howard's eyes, breaking off before it became a contest.  Howard sensed he was somehow being manipulated, yet was moved in spite of himself.  Lincoln, too.  Just because his emotion was practiced did not make it less genuine.

Lincoln put his feet on Pinkerton's empty seat, raised himself up on his hands, stretched luxuriously.  What's that you're reading? he asked, catching a glimpse of the book beneath Howard's jacket.

Howard took it out.  Friend of mine shoved it on me, but it's turning out to be something kind of special.

Lincoln took the volume.  "Tristram Shandy?"

It's chocked with Latin and French.  I get my friend to translate.

This put Lincoln off.  I'm not keen on novels.  Never could finish Ivanhoe, and that's mostly English.  He opened the book.  What...  He began flipping back and forth through the pages, staring in surprise at Sterne's awesomely erratic punctuation.  He let out a startled sound and held the book up, showing two pages blocked solid black.  What's this?

I guess you could call it a cenotaph for—

But the mere idea of a blank, black tombstone in a book was enough to strike the president-elect's funnybone.  Laughing, he flipped ahead, paused, then read out loud: 'Matters of no more seeming consequence in themselves than 'Whether my father should have taken off his wig with his right hand or his left'—have divided the greatest kingdoms, and made the crowns of the monarchs who governed them to totter upon their heads.—But need I tell you, Sir, that the circumstances with which everything in this world is begirt give everything in this world its size and shape;—and by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that, make the thing to be what it is—great—little—good—bad—indifferent and not indifferent, just as the case happens.'  Lincoln raised his head.  I couldn't hit a verse from the Bible any better.  Practicality mixed with his sense of mystery.  And look here, this chapter's no more'n a page long.  That cuts it up fine for reading on the odd moment.

Fifteen minutes after Pinkerton returned to the sleeper they reached the President Street depot in Baltimore.  Three in the morning.  There was a delay as the cars were uncoupled from the engine and hauled across the city to the B&O's Camden Station.  As they moved slowly out of the yard, the men in the sleeper were suddenly chilled by a man singing outside.

"'We're going to fight for darkies now,

Glory hallelujah!

At Lincoln's Negro altars bow,

Glory hallelujah!

Come, jolly white men, come along,

Glory hallelujah!

Fall in and sing this merry song,

Glory hallelujah!

O, when we get the Negroes free,

Glory hallelujah!

As good as Negroes we shall be,

Glory hallelujah!'"

I'd say that gentleman has misunderstood everything I've said from top to bottom, said Lincoln.

He's greetin' fou, growled Pinkerton.  He often borrowed from the Scot to express his greatest affections and contempts.  'Greetin fou': drunk.

Ol' Abe, I know you're comin'!  Watch your hind tit!  House divided against itself can't stand, can it?  Well, watch this half stay up!  Dog, this lion isn't dead.  Wasn't even nappin'!  If might makes right, we're sure to win!  Felicity be skinned and damned!  Suck the gaff, Abe!  Suck it all up, you ol' baboon!  There was a hard thump against the door.  Oh Maryland, my Maryland!

We'll beat him off, the Laird offered.

"No.  The first in line for my reception should be a drunk.  And a plagiarizer, to boot."

Only in Baltimore, Mr. President, Pinkerton responded.

They reached Washington two and a half hours later.  February 23, 1861.  Abraham Lincoln, first President to skulk to his inauguration.

Lincoln's family followed later that day.  It was prudently arranged that they should exit the train short of Baltimore.  When the New York local arrived, it was mobbed by a hostile crowd.  Had Lincoln been on board, the cattywampus Captain Fernandina could hardly have missed.

FOUR

Pinkerton, diving into the fat till of the B&O Railway, which had employed him to guard Lincoln, had taken several suites at Willard's for some of his employees.  Fortunate foresight, as there was not a spare room in town.  Washington was stuffed to the rafters with legislators and office seekers, with the curious and the public-minded who'd come early for the inauguration and with the morbid who had come with the notion of seeing Lincoln shot.

The male detectives were crammed in a two-room suite on the third floor, directly above the rooms occupied by the president-elect.  Bed and couch occupied, Howard had to be satisfied with the floor.  He went to sleep with profound murmurs in his carpet-pressed ear—but the sounds could just as easily have originated upstairs or next door.  He awoke to the sight of Thurlow Bates emerging through the bedroom door, scratching his stomach, the straps of his drooping suspenders flapping lazily.  Despite an awesome amount of stretching, the only part of him that seemed awake was his mouth.

Thurlow, Howard yawned, you're the only critter alive that takes a plug before his oatmeal.

An umber grin oozed from Bates' lips.  His beard was parted by a hairy tobacco sluice that did not quite go with the beard to the other side.  He sought out a spittoon and deposited a raw-looking glob that might have been part of his throat.  Part of his shot dribbled down the once-shiny side of the cuspidor, already streaked from the poor marksmanship of the night before, the rug around it richly splotched.

Howard enjoyed the gruff, bone-cracking wakeup of the men he shared the room with.  Usually he slept alone, so the blats and mucous-sodden habits of his fellow males never had the chance to wear on his nerves.  A friendly cage with other captive, burping animals.

Dude Lewis was stuck in the settee.  Help me up, he wheezed.

Someone obligingly tipped the small sofa over, spilling Dude on the floor like an arthritic cow.

Thank ye’ much, said Dude, wiping a spot of blood from his nose.

Hoary Judas, I bunked in silk sheets! Thurlow bragged.  He stretched up, took hold of the lintel and hung from it.  Hoots of derision from his roommates.  A loud crack—Thurlow dropped.  Looking guiltily at the trimming in his hands, he said, Maybe they was cotton.

So what's Abe like? said Dude.

He's an ugly son-of-a-gun, said Howard.

That him? said a detective from the large curved parlor window.

Howard looked out.  Their room was at the corner of 14th Street and the muddy plain of Pennsylvania Avenue, known to denizens as 'the Avenue'.  A stench rose from the sewer that ran its length: the 'Tiber'.  Howard hated to imagine what it smelled like in summer.

Down the Avenue stroke a tall man made nearly two feet taller by his stovepipe hat, a stilt in reverse.  He was accompanied by a stooped gray fellow Howard did not recognize.  There were other people on the Avenue, but none of them recognized Abraham Lincoln.  Many gave him a second glance, however.

An oddity.

FIVE

The restaurant at Willard's could accommodate over two thousand customers, mass consuming mass.  And as the guests were principally politicians in office and politicians out of office, chicanery was as common as gluttony.

Howard eavesdropped on a pair of Englishmen who were trying to decide what was more extraordinary, a man ordering robins on toast, oysters, spring shad, wild pigeon, scrambled eggs, pigs feet, and a host of buns and coffee cakes for breakfast, all sluiced down in a current of black tea, or the quite open display of political hypocrisy.  It was like a mammoth travesty of their own Carlton Club, where the Tory clientele was far more select, and the meals, while substantial, did not boggle the mind as well as the palate.

Howard shrugged off their disapproval.  He enjoyed vast gustatory adventures.  And he did not agree with their social observation.  All this clamor and flash of silverware was the dust of office-seekers jockeying for position; but the sharp-spurred doubledealing came later, upstairs.  It was too risky to dump old alliances while the real knives were out.  The halls of Willard's were really the government's steam tubes, foggy with intrigue, hissing with deceit, the engine frequently overheating and threatening to explode.  The situation had become so touchy that the Willard brothers had been forced to segregate the entrances to their establishment, Democrats entering at the F Street door, while Republicans made their entrance from the Avenue.  Between the two parties, hypocrisy was dangerously lacking, despite English opinion.

Three women agents had joined the men for breakfast.  Both Hesper and Mrs. Warne, who had reserved the sleeper for Lincoln in Philadelphia, ordered man-sized portions and appeared intent on eating most of it—a substantial deed, considering few men ate everything Willard's lavished on their china.  The only difference was that they did not eat with the same sloppy gusto as the male detectives.  Natural manners on Mrs. Warne's part, a concession on Hesper's; and despite her indifference to appearance this morning, Hesper had arranged her dress to hide the small bulge of fat at her midriff.

Mrs. Saxton took the lady's serving, was a refined consumer.  Yet there was something in the way she ate that made her more vulgar than any of them.  A certain liquescence in her lips, indefinable, absorbing.  Every bite was like a maneuver in some deep plot.  Howard grinned at her.  She grinned back.

Hesper raised her fork and hailed a man who'd just entered the restaurant.  Howard mentally remarked how she brightened into beauty, sans rouge or with, whenever her brother joined her.  John Pynchon waved enthusiastically.

After leaving Wilmington (and the telegraph operator to eternal perplexity), John had proceeded to Baltimore with some of the other agents who had spent long cold hours guarding the tracks.  On arriving, he was told his friend, Howard Stuyvesant, had ridden in the sleeper with the Black Republican himself.  After napping a couple hours, he had rushed out to catch the early-morning local to Washington.  It was the one Lincoln was supposed to be riding, the one Mrs. Lincoln, the Lincoln boys, and the presidential aides had evacuated before reaching the city.

But the crowd knew nothing about this.  John was at first reluctant to approach the virulently swelling mob at the President Street depot.  But he had told the other detectives where he was going.  If he returned to the hotel, word would spread that a secesh had only to do was growl to scare him off.  Pinkerton would toss him back into his dreary cubicle in Chicago.  He would spend the rest of his career as a clerk perusing the footnotes of action.  This was his first assignment in the field.  He did not want it to also be his inglorious last.

Of course, if it ever became known how he managed to board the train unscathed, he would never work again, anywhere.

Damn the nigger Republican! he'd shouted with the crowd, joining in when they chanted, "Nig-ger Lin-coln!  Nig-ger Lin-coln!—leering, grinning, or scowling, depending on the height of hatred in the strangers at his elbow.  Some of the rioters did not have politics in mind.  It wasn't every day one had the opportunity to stone a train, no matter who was on board.

The ticket seller had fled.  Luckily, John had a pass signed by J.F. Kennedy of the P.W.& B. railroad.  Cursing, clapping, hiding his fear, he battled his way over the tracks in the guise of a man who would gladly strangle the president-elect if only someone would guide him to his throat.

There was a shattering of glass.  A brawny, beery Irishman was trying to organize an attempt to tip over the train.  John was caught by a reverse