Dallas, Texas, October 28, 1952
Sam Rayburn was in his glory. He had often told Eleanor that his favorite spot on earth was his hometown of Bonham, Texas. When he suggested they drive there in the morning, before the major speech she had scheduled in Dallas later that day, Eleanor had readily agreed.
Sam picked up Eleanor, David, and Joan at nine o’clock sharp from the Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas. He was driving his gleaming black Cadillac with sparkling whitewalls, and he had an ear-to-ear grin on his face. Driving northeast from the city to the northern edge of the Blackland Prairie, Sam regaled his passengers with stories of his boyhood.
“Everybody worked like the devil. There were eleven kids, after all. But most of us went to college. That’s what made me determined to try to help the average man get a break,” Sam said as he pulled into the drive of his family house, then veered off toward the barn. He had promised to show Eleanor his favorite horse, Pansy.
David marveled at how relaxed Eleanor seemed to be. Perhaps she’s happy this will all be over soon, he thought. She can go back to living at Val-Kill and globe-trotting for good causes. He was relieved that she had stopped talking about the ridiculous fantasy of winning. There wasn’t a serious commentator in the country who gave her a chance. Well, she’d done her part, and he was just relieved she’d lived through it.
“You look happy, darling,” David said, “and like you have something up your sleeve.” He ran his hand up her arm and under the cap sleeve of her lilac dress, as he sat next to her in the car.
“I do,” Eleanor said, laughing like a girl, “but you won’t find it there.”
“What’s the big secret in this speech today?” David asked. “Do you know, Joan?”
“Nope, I’m just a messenger. But I wish I did.” Joan cast a rueful eye at Eleanor from her post in the passenger seat next to Sam.
“Now, now. Sam and I have conferred on this, and I think it’s better if it stays between us until my speech,” Eleanor said.
“I agree,” Sam added. “It’s just a commonsense idea, that’s all. And if you have common sense, you have all the sense you need.”
“So why the secrecy?” David pressed.
“Well, Sam’s right,” Eleanor replied, “but sometimes common sense can get people very upset. Don’t worry. You’ll know soon enough.” They had gotten out of the car and gone into the barn. “She’s a beauty, Sam,” Eleanor said, stroking the white marking on Pansy’s face. “I wish we had time for a ride.”
“So do I,” Sam said, “but we’ve got a tight schedule. We’ve got to leave here in two hours to get back to Dallas in time.”
“You mean the mayor of Bonham’s going to keep his remarks short?” Eleanor said, laughing.
“He’ll do what I told him to do,” Sam said. “Don’t you worry about that.”
In town, the citizens of Bonham, along with spectators who had driven from surrounding rural areas and farms, lined the streets ten deep to see “Mr. Sam” and his famous guest. Two visitors had driven five hundred miles through the night, due west from the eastern border of Mississippi. They kept the windows rolled down in the pickup’s cab, smoking endless cigarettes and plotting as they rode across the top of Louisiana’s boot then turned north along the outskirts of Dallas, getting to Bonham as the speakers’ platform was being hammered together in the center of Main Street.
“Where ya’ going to keep the gun?” Jim Barrow asked as Edgar Ray Killen parked the dusty black truck at the edge of a grassy lot where a few cars were just starting to pull in.
Killen held the pistol low on his lap, turning it over as if he was studying it for the first time.
“Wouldn’t my Daddy be proud?” Killen cradled his father’s World War II service revolver, a Remington Rand .45 caliber automatic. He read the words stamped along the barrel, “United States Property,” and ran his finger over the rough grip. Then he reached over and put the weapon in the glove compartment.
“Come on. Let’s go see what the setup is like and figure out where you should wait,” Killen said to Barrow, and the two men, blending in with their roughened jeans and white cotton T-shirts, walked toward the place where Eleanor would soon be welcomed as the guest of honor.
Jonathon Chamberlain was also in Bonham. The television commercials for Ike that he had been working on with Rosser Reeves were done. The “I Like Ike” ads had just started playing in key districts and were getting an enthusiastic response, with their parade of cartoon animals and people marching along with Ike banners and signs to the beat of the catchy tune.
Jonathon had been reassigned to follow Eleanor for the last days of the campaign and report anything that might need a quick response by Ike. He didn’t mind the assignment at all, knowing he was sure to run into Joan at some point.
Jonathon positioned himself by the bunting-covered speakers’ platform with its huge “Bonham, Texas” banner printed in Old West lettering. He jostled his way to the front row of spectators, craning his neck to see if Joan was anywhere in sight. The mayor and some local officials were already pacing on the raised platform in front of an American flag and Texas’s lone-star flag, both flapping gently. Someone tested the microphone, competing to raise the noise level with the local high school band that was tuning up. The whole thing reminded Jonathon of a county fair. Some people rode horses into town, and behind the buildings a battalion of pickup trucks were parked at crazy angles. Jonathon smelled barbecued pork and cotton candy, remembering with a pang in his stomach that he hadn’t had a chance to eat.
Suddenly, cheers could be heard echoing from the far end of town. The Bonham Fire Company’s bright red engine came into view, its siren intermittently cutting the air with an earsplitting shriek. The police chief came next, then Sam and Eleanor waving from a black Cadillac convertible. Two police cruisers took up the rear, and the crowd closed in behind the slow-moving motorcade, cheering as they filled Main Street and moved toward the speakers’ platform. The band had struck up, “Texas, Our Texas,” and some people in the crowd began to sing the state song.
Jonathon heard a sharp and familiar voice cutting through the noise saying, “Please move back, please don’t push on the rope.” He turned to see Joan trying to adjust the ropes that cordoned a lane from the street to the stairs of the platform. He pushed his way closer and tapped her arm.
“Glad to see you made it,” he said. “Want some help?”
Joan looked flustered. “No, I don’t need any help, and I can’t talk now. Please,” she said, turning sharply and tapping a woman’s arm, “could you step back so Mrs. Roosevelt and Mr. Rayburn will have room to walk to the stage?”
Jonathon decided to wait for a better time to propose a martini. He looked down the street and saw that all but the car with Eleanor and Sam had peeled off a block before the stage.
Their car stopped just a few feet from the lane that Joan was struggling to keep open, and Sam stepped out. He was only five feet, six inches tall, and the top of his head, as bald as the clay-pan near the Red River, was the only glimpse of him that most of the crowd could see. He held his hand out for Eleanor, and then walked ahead as they both slowly moved along the rope line, shaking hands and chatting. Looking up, Eleanor could see Joan and David waiting near the stage steps. She gave them a delighted smile, as if she hadn’t seen them in months. David had the rueful thought that she often looked happier on the campaign trail than anywhere else.
Jonathon had maneuvered to a spot just opposite the stage stairs, standing behind a woman whose head he could easily see over. Sam and Eleanor seemed to be having conversations with everyone along the line, but as they slowly moved closer to Jonathon, he felt the crowd press up against his back and sides. People were cheering and reaching their hands over the shoulders of people in front of them.
Jonathon looked to his left at a towheaded two-year-old on his father’s shoulders who was screaming in fright at the commotion. His mother was shouting for her husband to pass the little boy to her. Just in front of them against the rope, Jonathon noticed a man wearing a hip-length fawn-colored work coat, unnecessary since the temperature was well in the seventies. The man’s hands were stuffed into the coat’s deep front pockets, and compared to the rest of the crowd, he seemed frozen, staring through the pandemonium in the direction of the approaching candidates. There’s a crank in every crowd, Jonathon thought, looking back toward Eleanor, and wondering how often hecklers disturbed her speeches.
Sam stopped just before Jonathon’s spot along the rope line and turned toward the stairs. With a few more handshakes, Eleanor did the same. As she stepped up the makeshift wooden stairs, David stood to the side, bending to speak into her ear and lending his hand as a railing. The band had switched to “The Marines’ Hymn.” Jonathon began singing, “From the hall of Montezuu-uma,” in a full-throated tenor that made Joan look his way. She couldn’t help but smile when she spotted his face above the crowd, his mouth opened wide in song. He winked at her and stepped to the side, hoping to find a spot to slip under the rope after Eleanor was up onstage.
Suddenly, a small but odd movement caught Jonathon’s eye. The strange man in the work coat had pulled his right hand partway out of his pocket, then shoved it back. Jonathon could see by the stretch of the coat’s fabric that something hard was in the man’s pocket. Reacting without thinking, Jonathon pushed past a middle-aged woman in a flowered shirtwaist who stood to the man’s right.
“Young man!” The woman turned and gave him a nasty look, as he jostled her hard enough that she started to stumble.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathon said, but as he spoke, he saw the man’s arm come up again. This time, he pulled the pistol out all the way, aiming at Eleanor just as she was reaching the top of the stairs. It seemed to Jonathon that the shot came at the same moment that he lunged, a staccato burst like a drummer hitting one cracking beat out of rhythm. Jonathon was only a couple of inches taller, but decidedly heavier than the assailant. Hanging onto the gun, the man tried to push Jonathon off as they stumbled into the frantic crowd that was trying to move away from them. People were screaming and ducking their heads. An older man and what looked like his son, dressed in overalls and baseball caps, rushed over. The younger man grabbed the assassin’s gun arm and pushed it up as another wild shot went off harmlessly into the air. Jonathon reached up and wrested the gun from the man’s hand, bringing the weapon down with furious force against his face. Edgar Ray Killen fell to the ground, the three men dropping next to him, pinning his arms and legs. Jonathon’s ears pounded from the rush of adrenaline, but suddenly he registered the cries of the people around him.
“Oh my God, it’s Eleanor.”
“Are you sure it was her that got hit? Are you sure?”
“Can you see her? I can’t see her.”
Jonathon jumped up and nearly threw people out of his way as he fought to get to the stage. He felt a surge of relief as he caught sight of Joan standing not far from her spot near the stairs, tears streaming down her face as she tried to see through a circle of men kneeling on the ground in front of her. Jonathon rushed over and pulled her close. She leaned into him, trying to control the sobs that were welling inside her. Someone had signaled the band to stop playing. The only sounds were occasional shouts and the loud hum of voices as the police moved the crowd away from the scene. Holding each other without speaking, Joan and Jonathon stared at the dusty ground where Eleanor lay. David knelt beside her, frantically trying to stanch the blood that seemed to be everywhere.