With the mountains came darkness, more from the moaning clouds than the descent of the sun. Thunder had been rolling for the past twenty minutes, and flashes of lightning danced around the hilltops.
Marietta scooted closer and closer to his side, which Slade accepted with nary a complaint. He might only have another hour with her, so he would savor every moment.
“How long until we get there, do you think?” Her words were muffled against his chest.
Slade smiled and coiled another scarlet strand around his finger. “I’m not sure. We haven’t been stopping the way passenger trains do.”
He had no idea where they were now. In West Virginia, somewhere—whenever Marietta released him long enough to move near the door again, he could see the Potomac winding its way through the valleys.
They had decided after prayer that they should wait until they were on solid ground before taking any action. Mrs. Hughes could too easily be injured in any fray they took to his private car, and Marietta insisted they spare her whatever fresh pain they could. So when the train slowed, Slade would close the door again and hide. Marietta would go with Hughes when he came for her—with Slade’s revolver; he had liberated another from the crates—and pretend to be repentant.
Hughes might believe her for a few minutes, anyway. Long enough for her to get the mother separated from the son. Slade would give himself enough time to see how many cronies the man had recruited and do what was necessary to stop them.
Another tongue of electricity flashed through the sky, and Marietta scooted closer. “That seemed close. What if it strikes us, or sends a tree onto the tracks? What will we do then?”
“Just what we planned, kitten. With a few modifications.”
She shuddered when the thunder rolled over them, loud as a cannon. “I’m sorry I’m such a ninny about these stupid storms.”
His chuckle disappeared into a gust of wind that sent the sliding door banging. “You can snuggle up to me anytime you want. In fact.” He shifted, tilted her face up toward his. “What was the ‘best distraction’ you had in mind a couple weeks ago?”
“Hmm. I can’t recall.” She pressed a hand to the back of his head. “Let’s see if a kiss refreshes my memory.”
Did she use phrases like that just to sound like an ordinary person? Maybe someday, if they had a someday, he would ask her. For now, he touched his lips to hers, intending to keep the kiss sweet and soft. She would remember this forever, and if it were their last embrace, it should tell her always how much he loved her.
Marietta must have had different ideas. Her lips tasted of urgency and moved with purpose over his.
That was all right too.
His eyes slid shut, but he still saw the next flash through the lids, and no thundering pulse could drown out its electric snap. They were in the heart of the storm now. The door crashed again—he would have to secure it in a minute. Rain lashed the floor of the car, and they would do better to stay dry than to have the evening’s meager light.
But that would require releasing Marietta, and his arms refused. Better to hold her tight, to meet her kiss for kiss.
There was a roar—human, not heavenly—and then the world shifted. A sturdy boot connected with his ribs, and his eyes flew open to see the devil himself towering over him. Hughes had Marietta by the torso, pinning her left arm to her side and pressing her legs into one of the barrels.
Slade hit a crate, fell to an empty section of floor, and slid through the puddle as the train raced around a curve.
Hughes, shrouded largely by shadow, snarled. “Exactly how many ways have you betrayed me, Osborne?”
“Me?” Guns—he needed one of the guns. “I haven’t done any betraying.” There, still on the crate. He levered himself up, though the chances of getting to it before Hughes could act were slim.
Where was Marietta’s?
“Haven’t done any—” Hughes spat out a curse, his voice venomous. He must have made some move, because Marietta whimpered. “You are in my train when you should be in Washington. With your hands on my woman.”
Lightning flashed, and in its light he saw the flash of metal. Her gun—in her right hand. Praise to the Almighty.
His praise turned to silent plea when he saw that Hughes’s hand was clasped around hers on the weapon. And that he was forcing her arm up, inch by inch.
She whimpered again, her arm shaking.
Images flashed before his eyes. Fire spitting from the barrel of his revolver, aimed at his heart. The cylinder turning, another bullet sliding into the chamber. Hughes turning the gun—Slade’s own gun—on Marietta.
“No!” Whether it was fear, premonition, or prophecy, he didn’t know, but he had to stop it one way or another. He had to save her. He tried to take a step, but the wet floor beneath him sent him slipping. He grabbed at anything he could.
Wind whipped his back. His fingers had found purchase, but not until he reached the door.
Marietta’s scream blended with the rumble of thunder.
Lord, help me. Help me save her.
Dragging in a breath, he called up the mask he usually wore in Hughes’s presence. Slid a step to the side, so the metal door was at his back. “Relax, Hughes. I came along to help, that’s all. Booth sent me a note saying Surratt had just returned and they wouldn’t need me in Washington.”
He prayed it didn’t sound as stupid to Hughes’s ears as it did to his own. And if it did, then maybe a cocky smile would smooth it over. “As for your woman.” He added a shrug. “You know how she gets in storms, I imagine. Just eager for comfort. And after listening for hours to her moan and groan about how much she loves you and how afraid she is you wouldn’t believe her, I just wanted to shut her up. Thought I’d have a little fun doing it.”
Lord, forgive the lies. Please. Please save her.
Eyes wide, Marietta rubbed together the thumb and forefinger of the arm pinned to her side, over and again. He frowned until he realized it was a sign, one of the ones Elsie used frequently. What are you doing?
He hadn’t the words, silent or vocal, to answer. Giving you a chance, he wanted to say, but his hands didn’t know how and his lips didn’t dare.
So he had to settle for a command. One simple word, one simple motion of the hand from waist to heart, with his thumb up. Live.
She shook her head, though whether in answer to him or Hughes he couldn’t tell. The gun was level now, Hughes’s finger on the trigger. He knew she would do everything she could to keep the weapon from firing. Everything she could to affect the aim.
He owed it to her to try, one last time. With one final please, Lord he lunged for the crate.
Fire spat from the barrel of his revolver. She managed to jerk Hughes’s arm, but it didn’t matter. The car shifted, his foot slid. Fire kicked him. He reached out, trying to grab something, anything, to halt him. For one moment his fingers caught hold of the edge of the door, but the metal was rain-slick, and his hand would not obey his command to hold tight.
A scream. A curse.
Empty air embraced him. Nothing but air for an eternity, long enough that he saw the scarlet curls fly out the door after him. Saw them jerk back in. Long enough that he could be thankful she didn’t follow, that he heard no second shot.
Then earth, rock, tree limbs. Some rushing by, some reaching out greedy claws to grab at him, pummel him, bite him. The mountainside went on forever.
His arms wouldn’t obey his orders to reach out and find a hold. His breath wouldn’t come. His chest felt as though the locomotive had seared its way through him.
Crashing, snapping. Green filled his vision, then gray. So much gray, no color left in the world. Nothing but that memory of her fiery red hair.
Splash. The cold of the water made him jerk, twist, and blackest night edged out the gray. To live is Christ…to die is gain.
Eternity pressed down. He could see only a splinter of the world—the track on the mountain above him, the hillside he had just tumbled down. He could feel only the nothingness of the icy Potomac. He could hear only the din of a cry whose words made no sense.
“Aunt Abigail! Aunt Abigail, hurry!”
A wisp of blue that should have been gray. Of black that should have been red. A face, there one moment and gone the next. Something pressing, pushing eternity away.
More voices, jumbles of words. What and train and fall. Shot and bridge and ran.
Another face. A woman. “Who did this to you, mister?”
Did he have any breath left? He gathered what he could, expelled it on the name. “Hughes. Dev…” The black grew. The splinter shrank. The fire of pain both consumed and, somehow, numbed. He dragged in one more breath. His last words couldn’t, wouldn’t be that monster’s name. They had to matter. They had to matter as much as she did. “Lord…save…her.”
His answer was a bolt of lightning, a crack that rent the very air in two. A treetop rushing toward him.
The black descended.
Time was a dragon set against him, and as Walker ran down the dark streets, he felt it breathing down his back. He didn’t need a watch to know too many tocks had ticked. Didn’t need the knot in his gut to tell him things were all wrong. Didn’t need the cold bite of night air to send a chill down his spine.
Evil walked tonight.
“Lord, go before me. Make clear the way. Protect the family I left at home.”
Cora and their tiny son were doing well when he left them at dusk. Jess had woken up. That would have to suffice for now.
He sucked in a breath and turned the corner onto Tenth Street. He prayed that Hez had made it to Secretary Steward’s house and convinced them to be on their guard. He knew the family, which was why he’d been the one to go. But then he would try to make his way to the theater too.
Grandpa Henry had gone to the Kirkwood House, where Vice President Johnson and Atzerodt were both staying. His grandfather knew “Port Tobacco” well enough to promise he could get him talking, get him drinking…and that then it would be a simple matter of dissuading him from his role.
That left Walker with the biggest task of them all. Hez should have done it. He knew that as he hurried down the street with all the rich white folk and felt their stares upon him. Hez could have gone into the theater and made sure the president stayed safe. Walker, on the other hand…
But they had decided to obey their own rules and stay undetected. So Hez went to the family who wouldn’t ask questions he couldn’t answer. And Walker went to find one of Pinkerton’s men.
Herschel wasn’t back. The other doors he had knocked on had either slammed in his face when he mentioned Osborne or waved him away as a fool. So much time wasted. What choice did he have now but to try to get into the theater himself?
Ford’s was just ahead. Cabbies waited outside, drivers hunching into their blankets and horses’ ears twitching. He hurried along, trying his best to look like just another servant out on a mission from his master, no one to pay any heed to.
He nearly collided with a sot staggering out of a tavern. Yellow light and tinny music spilled out with him, and Walker hissed out a breath when he saw his face. “Mr. Kaplan?”
The detective leaned against the tavern’s filthy brick wall. “Shine my shoes, boy?”
He shook that away. “Mr. Kaplan, thank the Lord. There’s a man planning on shooting the president in just a few minutes. You can stop him.”
Kaplan straightened and spat. “Not much to be thankin’ God for these days, is there, boy? War might be over, but it killed all the good ones. Nothin’ left but the sick and the weak and cowards. God musta turned His face away from us long ago.”
Sometimes it sure seemed that way. But then, you couldn’t see if God had turned His head when you’d already turned yours. “He’s still there. Still waiting for us to do the right thing. Will you help me, Mr. Kaplan?”
“Help you?” Kaplan hiccupped and waved a hand toward the theater. “Do I look ready to work to you? Someone else is on guard duty tonight. Let him stop him if there’s even a him to stop. It’s…it’s…” He squinted and then loosed a low, ugly laugh. “It’s Parker, that’s who. He’s watching Lincoln. Assuming he isn’t drunk or asleep on the job like he was last week. And last month. And—”
“Thunder and turf!” Walker sidestepped the drunk and darted across the street to the theater.
A black man stepped forward in the uniform of a doorman, his hand up. “Whoa, there. Where do you think you’re going, son?”
Walker knew he would stop him, but maybe, just maybe he could get around him. “Please, you have to let me in. I got an important message.”
The older man shook his head, though sympathy lit his eyes. “You know I can’t let you in this door, not the one the white folks use. You gotta go round the back.”
“You don’t understand.” He stepped closer, praying the man would relent. Would look the other way. “It’s urgent. Life-and-death kind of urgent.”
“I’m sorry.” The doorman shook his head again. “If I let you in, it’s real trouble for me. You gotta go round. Right on round there and then through the back entrance. My boy can help get your message to your master.”
Briefly, Walker considered force. But if he tried it, he would get shot or beaten within steps of the door. Folks wouldn’t take too kindly to a black man bursting into a place like that. He nodded and followed the doorman’s outstretched arm.
The theater shared walls with the other buildings on the street, and he had to jog all the way to the corner and around, and then down an alleyway. The moon still shone hazy and dim through the clouds, but it felt darker, as though something had swooped down over the street.
Walker slowed only when he spotted the theater doors, open to the night. Folks loitered around it in the circle of light, smoking and laughing. He pushed through them with an abstract nod of greeting and stepped into an unfamiliar world. Props, curtains, discarded costumes, and rows of what he assumed were backdrops. People were darting this way and that, some with extravagant costumes on, some obviously never to see the stage.
Seeing a boy who had the look of the doorman about him, he stopped him with what he hoped was a casual grin. “Hey there. You know where the president’s box is?”
The boy, probably twelve or so, grinned back. “You want a glimpse of him too? Come on. I’ll show ya the best view.”
He didn’t need the best view; he needed the closest one. But at least it would give him an idea of the layout.
The boy waved him down a dark corridor. “You gotta be real quiet,” he whispered. He paused at a break in the wall and nodded toward the brightly lit stage. “That there’s Miss Keene. Listen—this is the best line of the play.”
He could barely see the woman and didn’t much care. He edged onward as she said, “I am aware, Mr. Trenchard, that you are not used to the manners of polite society.”
Another piece of wall, another break in it. He halted. What were all those banners hanging over on the side there, above the stage? Red, white, and blue ones…the president’s box?
A man on stage preened. “Heh, heh. Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap!”
Laughter roared through the audience. Walker strained forward. Was that Lincoln standing in the shadows of the box? Or—
Crack.
Chaos, instant and deafening. Walker tried to rush forward, but the actors were running, screaming, pushing into him.
A figure jumped from the balcony to the stage. Booth, shouting something in Latin. He took off for the back.
Walker took off after him, bowling over the boy and getting caught in the shouting, darting crowd of theater people. But even as he fought his way outside, he knew he was too late.
Booth was gone. Lincoln was shot.
Walker sank to the cool bricks and stared into the thick darkness. Two more minutes, and he could have been there. He could have stopped him. Two more minutes, and the Culpers would have won.
Two more minutes the world had refused him. And now he could only watch them reel.