The Lincoln Conspiracy

by Timothy L. O'Brien

  “You keep it,” Temple said, giving Nail the LeMat. “I’m no good with guns, and you deserve it, saving us all here.”

  “You saved me twice in New York, Temple. Not once. Twice.”

  “Then you still owe me a rescue.”

  “Baker is powerful strong and vicious, but you drove him into the ground.”

  “Only because I had an audience. The audience I want, however, is with the war secretary.”

  “Will he want to meet with you?”

  “I think not.”

  “Then you’ll have to get his ear in a public place. Think on that. What’s happening on Tuesday?”

  “Of course. Inspired, Nail, inspired.”

  “Yep, the Grand Review. Straight down Pennsylvania, two hundred thousand troops, two days from tomorrow, marking the end of the war. Stanton is sure to be in the reviewing stand, since he ordered up the whole shindig. You should be there, too.”

  “Thank you again, Nail.”

  “Danger’s going to charge harder at you now, Temple. Baker wants what you have and you’ve embarrassed him too many times. He’s not one to up and go away.”

  “I know. We’ll have to leave Augustus’s house soon. Can you maintain us in Swampdoodle?”

  “For a brief time, a week or two. Keeping a Negro in there for that time is a juggle, for certain. But I’ve always found whatever widdy I needed to pop a lock, and I can mentalate around this hurdle, certain. Understand: I don’t have any worries about standing up to Baker and the rest of his amalgamation, but I can’t hold him off forever.”

  “A week is all I’ll need. And Fiona and I will both need clothing.”

  “Then you’ll have both—and I have an extra gift in mind for you as well.”

  Nail’s wolfhound was at his feet, and it jumped up by his side as soon as he began walking back to the woods. He wrapped the dog’s leash around his hand and set off toward a ring of torches deep into the trees, where he could hear harmonicas, fiddles, and song, where he knew there would be drink, where he would sit down amid his lads and their dogs and their tales and their cursing and their time in the night, in this night, under the stars—the very same stars at which Augustus had gazed before Baker arrived and the lines were drawn.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE WHITWORTH

  “Mr. Baker didn’t know my name when we encountered each other at Mary Ann Hall’s,” Temple said to Augustus and Fiona as he tipped his chair back against the wall, allowing it to rock slightly. “But he came here tonight knowing I had a wife and knowing my last name.”

  “How did he find you out?” Augustus asked.

  “I’m working on that.”

  Temple had shown them the pictures of Booth, and when he was done speaking about his conversation with Gardner, Fiona told Temple about her meeting with Mrs. Lincoln. All of them were weary to their bones, and less animated about their mutual news than they might have been on a different evening. But Temple was pleased that Fiona would have an entire train ride with Mrs. Lincoln, and Augustus was anxious to work some of the code from the diary.

  “It won’t be easy getting you on the train with Mrs. Lincoln,” Temple said. “She travels in a private car.”

  “But I am her invited guest,” Fiona said.

  “You’re also my wife, and some of those around Mrs. Lincoln are likely to know as much. Her son has retained Pinkerton for other work. If he’s there—or if Baker appears—then you’ll never make it onto the train. They’ll make sure of that.”

  “I suggest we sleep well for at least a night. We can measure our approaches to our problems in the morning,” Fiona said.

  “A wise woman!” said Augustus, who rose, stretched, and opened a blanket on the floor. He had given up his bedroom to Fiona and Temple but had borrowed a straw mattress from the Campbell Hospital and laid it on the floor of his sitting room. After Temple and Fiona left the room, he took off his boots and shirt and lay down to sleep.

  In Augustus’s bedroom, Fiona and Temple rinsed their hands, necks, and faces with water and a sponge that he had left for them in a basin on a table near the door. There was also a small tin filled with powdered Peruvian bark that he had mixed with myrrh, green sage, and white honey so that they could clean their teeth. After washing, Fiona lighted a candle and knelt by the side of the bed, opening her Book of Common Prayer. Her lips began moving silently, but Temple knew her prayer before bed and could hear it in his head.

  Oh, Lord, our heavenly Father,

  By whose Almighty power we have been preserved this day;

  By thy great mercy defend us from all perils

  and dangers of this night;

  For the love of thy only Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

  There was a small window by the bed, and Temple could still see the torches glowing in the woods nearby and the silhouette of one man, fiddle in hand, dancing on one leg as he played. Temple stared out the window, thinking about the days ahead of them and all that was left to learn and do, and then he pulled the shade down. He turned to Fiona, who had changed into one of Augustus’s shirts and was wearing it as a nightdress.

  “You need to pray, too, my defective,” she said.

  “It’s easier for you,” he said. “You have faith and I have confusion.”

  He rested his cane against the wall and slipped off his boots. Fiona began unbuttoning his trousers, and he slipped his hand inside her shirt, pulling her onto the bed.

  “I would like to have children, Temple.”

  “Tonight?”

  “One day,” she said, smiling.

  “You’ll tell me when that day comes?”

  “I will.”

  THERE WERE BAKED beans, bread, coffee, and water on the table when they woke up. And on the road down the hill from Augustus’s house there were long lines of Union infantry, cavalry, and artillery rolling past on their way into the District. Temple joined Augustus, who had awoken earlier, outside his house. Both of them were accustomed to seeing soldiers with the Army of the Potomac in and around the District, but these were William Tecumseh Sherman’s men, the Army of the Tennessee, and they wore a jumble of different sack coats, frock coats, and shell jackets over their trousers—some were regulation blue, like the standard uniforms worn by Grant’s men, but most were a hodgepodge of ragtag styles and hues. Mules and pack horses rode alongside the troops, loaded down with booty that Sherman’s bummers had looted from Southern cities and plantations: huge saddlebags bursting with silver candlesticks and platters, glassware, swords, fine china, paintings, rifles, jewelry, and coins, and—strapped or tied across some of the animals’ backs—clocks, chairs, and tables.

  Temple put a hand on Augustus’s shoulder as they both watched the troops march along.

  “Nail says there’s going to be two hundred thousand soldiers in Washington for the Grand Review to celebrate the end of the war,” Temple said. “The Army of the Potomac parades on Tuesday and the Army of the Tennessee parades on Wednesday. What land could have an army of this size in its capital and not fear a coup? Europe could never have this.”

  But Augustus wasn’t paying attention to the troops or the plunder or the sheer number of soldiers who were pouring into the city. Instead, his eyes were riveted on the former slaves trotting along next to the mules, Negroes whom Sherman’s men had also captured in the South and brought North with them.

  “What land honors its soldiers for a war of liberation while it parades former slaves as if they are spoils rather than human beings? General Sherman wouldn’t let any black soldiers fight alongside him, and he ignored Stanton’s calls to arm slaves,” Augustus whispered. “Now it’s said that Sherman makes light of Stanton’s efforts to protect Negro voters in the South. So why does Sherman’s army spool these slaves alongside their mules today? Are they trophies, or will they be given shelter, an education, and work?”

  Fiona, coffee in hand, stepped out to join them.

  “This is why the District needs you to teach and needs yo
u to help steer the Freedmen’s Bureau, Augustus,” she said. “So that they aren’t just brought here as trophies and forgotten.”

  Augustus shook his head, speaking past Fiona.

  “It’s not just the slaves they’re trotting along that vexes me,” he said. “They are not allowing a single Negro soldier to march in the Grand Review, either—soldiers who risked their lives alongside white soldiers. Not a single one.”

  Fiona placed her hand on his arm, but Augustus kicked the ground in front of himself, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

  Temple looked across the field toward the woods, where Nail was also standing, watching the troops file past. His wolfhound was sitting by his side, and he was leaning on an Enfield, mesmerized by the number of men marching on the road. Temple stared at Nail until the other man looked over, then raised his hand to wave. Nail waved back quickly, then returned to looking at the troops.

  “Augustus, shall we work on our cipher?” Temple asked.

  The three of them went to a table inside, and Augustus pulled out a slat on the wall, where he had hidden the two diaries. Augustus handed Mary Todd Lincoln’s diary to Fiona, who held it in her hands, unsure of what to do with it.

  “You could read it and acquaint yourself with it before your train ride to Chicago,” Temple suggested.

  “And then I would be doing exactly that which the two of you have done: compromising Mrs. Lincoln’s intimacies,” Fiona said.

  “So how shall you prepare yourself for conversations with her, then?”

  “I trust that she will tell me whatever she cares to tell me about her husband, of her own accord. Not because I have loitered upon her twilight thoughts.”

  “That is well and fine, but there are reasons that Mr. Baker wants Mrs. Lincoln’s diary, and we need to understand those reasons ourselves. Considering that, reading her diary is not a sin.”

  “Well, you have told me enough of what you found in her journal for me to understand what we need to inquire of her. But I still want to say to her with all honesty that I myself have not peeked inside her diary. Now, I need to bathe and pack for my journey tomorrow.”

  Inside a cramped enclosure next to the bedroom, barely larger than a closet, Augustus had placed a large cast-iron cistern that he used for a tub. Fiona took two large pails to the well outside and began filling them; it would take her more than a dozen trips to fill the cistern and then she would need to wait an hour or so for the chill to come off the water before she could bathe.

  As she passed in and out of the house, Temple and Augustus pulled the Vigenère table from Booth’s diary and reengaged with their puzzle.

  “Look hard at this again,” Temple said to Augustus, writing MARKOFC on a piece of paper. “This is our cipher for breaking the Vigenère table, and I’ve gotten no further than when you said you had it days ago,” Augustus said. “I am at a loss for how to proceed.”

  “I would read Booth’s diary again, and I would read it with the eye of a sleuth.”

  “Your eye.”

  “No, Augustus, entirely yours, opened in new ways so as to gaze upon new places.”

  Augustus took up the diary as Temple walked outside to watch more lines of soldiers march past the house. It was a perfectly clear day, warm and free of the fog and rain of recent weeks. As Fiona approached the house with two more pails, Temple took one from her and tried to keep it from spilling as he trudged back into the house on his cane. He poured the water into the cistern and went back outside to the well. The last line of troops had filed past on the road, and Fiona was pumping more water. Nail, his Enfield in hand, was walking back into the woods. Temple refilled his pail and, as he neared the house, heard Augustus shouting. He hurried inside and left the pail in the middle of the room just inside the door.

  “Temple, I have it!”

  Augustus was standing, reading aloud from the Booth diary:

  Patriot has told Maestro that I am no traitor, I am sure. Patriot says that Maestro owns Lord War. Davey, George, and Lewis are all heroes also, even if they, too, share the mark of Cain. Those that find this, those that chase me, know the cipher, and the cipher is true. I do not care that I am made a villain among those who honor the Tyrant. He wanted nigger citizenship and I ran him through.

  “And?”

  “ ‘They too share the mark of Cain.’ There it is, MARKOFC, embedded in that sentence. The cipher is ‘mark of Cain.’ ”

  “Congratulations, Augustus. The world turns and you, too, are now a detective.”

  Temple stepped toward the water pail and into a rectangle of sunlight that poured through the doorway, painting a patch of the floor a creamy yellow. As he bent down, he heard two gunshots—bursting quickly and nearly in tandem, like two small, brief thunderclaps—and a bullet flashed past his leg and tore though the metal pail, leaving holes on opposite sides that leaked onto the floor in crisp, arced spouts. Temple dropped down, away from the light, and waved Augustus to the floor as well.

  “Fiona?” he shouted.

  “I am here and I am fine,” she yelled from outside. “Are you hurt?”

  “Only our pail. What of Nail?”

  “He is well, too. Come out.”

  Augustus helped Temple to his feet, and the first thing they saw as they passed through the door was a man’s body hanging upside down by the legs from the lower branches of a tree across the road, a four-foot-long rifle dangling on a strap from his shoulder. Nail was running toward them from across the field, the blue ink stains on his hands and arms visible now as they hadn’t been the night before, and he whooped loudly, thrusting his Enfield up and down above his head. Dozens of his men were flooding out of the woods behind him, and Fiona, her hand on her mouth, stood watching as Nail hooted, at a loss for words of her own.

  “Let’s go take a look-see!” Nail shouted to Temple and Augustus as he ran at an angle past them and zipped across the road, not stopping until he was almost on top of the dead body tangled in the tree. Augustus was right behind him and while they waited for Temple to work his way to them on his cane, Nail began scrounging around the dead man’s body. Several of Nail’s men pushed forward, too, but he swore at the group, ordering them back and peeling a pouch of bullets off the corpse’s belt. Then he yanked the rifle off the dead man’s shoulder and began examining it. By the time Temple and Fiona reached him, Nail was issuing a series of elated whistles as he scanned the rifle’s stock, butt, barrel, and sights.

  “Today, on the face of this good, green earth, and with witnesses in abundance, Jack Flaherty did himself pick off a Union sharpshooter tucked in the trees and intent on plugging his bosom friend Temple McFadden from a range of …” With this, Nail looked back at the house, gauging the distance. “A range of about a hundred and twenty-five yards. All here say: ‘Aye, Jack Flaherty, marksman robusto and boodler supremo!’ ”

  In unison, all of Nail’s men did as they were told: “Aye, Jack Flaherty, marksman robusto and boodler supremo!”

  Nail pulled Temple over to look at the rifle, and Temple couldn’t recall a time when Nail looked happier. Nail pointed to an engraving on the stock: “1st Regiment.”

  “This dead soul fought with Hi Berdan’s group in the war. They were the best sharpshooters in the army, and this rifle—ooh, this rifle—is a Whitworth, costing ninety-six dollars new and now mine by rightful appropriation! To get in with Berdan you had to be able—from two hundred yards out, mind you—to place ten shots in a ten-inch circle. If you couldn’t do that, he wouldn’t have you. And here is the loverly part,” Nail said, opening up the pouch of bullets, “The Whitworth fires ungodly pricey rounds, all shaped like little hexagons, and our dead marksman had a full stash on him!”

  “The loverly part, Nail, is that you got him before he got me,” Temple said. “Now we are even.”

  “I’m not countin’.”

  “How did you know?”

  “They put Baker’s body across a riderless horse last night. Somebody snuck away, because they didn’t r
ide up with an extra horse. Didn’t even absorb into my thinkerings that they hauled him off like that till I started looking at those mules pass by this morning with Southern loot strapped to their backs. So whoever they left behind could try to hide in the woods behind the house, ’cepting we was there. That left ’em the hospital, but too many other people in there. Only other spot to hide in is the clutch of trees right here. When the soldiers began filing by, I stood there, making like I was enrapturated by them. But I was scanning the trees for revelations. At one point he wiggled, just a little, and a tingling of sunsplash sparkled on his barrel. So when the troops wound down, I playacted back into the woods and set up with my Enfield. Split that farker’s head as soon as his barrel stuck its nose through the branches.”

  “He didn’t miss me by much,” Temple said. “I heard his shot and yours as if they were married.”

  “Fast and good, sure he was, but he’s morbitized now and you are still breathing,” Nail said, slapping Temple on the back.

  Nail’s men pulled the corpse from the tree, and it flopped down onto its back; a ruby-red splotch of blood was splattered around a fist-sized hole in the sharpshooter’s head, pale shards of skull and gray flecks of brain matter oozing onto the ground. Fiona turned away, shaking her head, and walked silently back to the house.

  “This here is a fanatical group Baker has around him, Temple. He’s scoring Union sharpies and who knows who else,” Nail said. “You got to get out of the house tonight. I think Baker will be back here in force by then. And, Augustus, I reckon they’ll burn down your house once they find it’s empty.”

  Augustus nodded and turned back to the house.

  “I have a good cast-iron cookstove in my back room,” he said over his shoulder to Nail. “If you’ve got a wagon, you are welcome to take it before Baker comes for my house.”

  Nail’s men took off the dead sharpshooter’s boots, picked his pockets clean, and then dragged him by his feet across the road and the field and into the woods, where they buried him.