So Little Time

by Al Lacy

  Moving closer to him, Herold asked, “About what, Doctor?”

  “Why are you two gentlemen riding at night? Wouldn’t it be much better to ride in the daylight?”

  Booth looked at his friend and noticed him stiffen slightly.

  “Well, it’s like this, Doctor,” said Herold, “we’re in a hurry.”

  Booth’s eyes widened.

  “You see,” Herold went on, “James’s mother also lives in Lexington Park, and she is very ill. Her doctors say she will not live much longer. He was hesitant to leave her for this trip, but it was very important, so he came with me. He’s wanting to get back to see her before she dies.”

  “Oh,” said Mudd, lowering his head to look at Booth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Boyd. We’ll get this taken care of as soon as possible.”

  The physician kept checking the clock on the wall, and when twenty minutes had passed, he carefully examined the leg. Booth winced a few times while Mudd was doing his examination.

  Finally, the doctor sighed and said, “Just as I thought. The fibula is definitely fractured. I will set the broken bone, then wrap it tightly and put it in a splint. You will experience some pain when I set the bone.”

  Booth and Herold exchanged glances and Herold commented, “Like the doctor said, James, be glad for the laudanum.”

  Booth could feel his body tensing up. “Yeah. I am.”

  Mudd said, “Mr. Smith, it would help if you would stand there at the head of the table and put your hands on your friend’s shoulders. He may want to move some. Hold him down, and hold him still. All right?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Herold, moving to the head of the table. He looked down at Booth and laid his hands on his shoulders. “It’ll be all right, James. You’re tough.”

  Booth did not comment, but as Dr. Samuel Mudd took hold of his leg, the tension in his muscles was now an uncomfortable strain.

  There was a sudden, sharp pain in the leg as Mudd hastily set the bone, accompanied with the snapping sound of the bone going partially back in place. Booth clenched his teeth, grunted, and bowed his back. Herold pushed his shoulders down, holding him tight against the table. There was another sharp pain as the doctor completed the setting, and Booth’s head began to swim. Even through the laudanum fog, he was gripped in a vice of pain. He seemed to be floating off the table, and the sounds of Dr. Mudd’s work were fading. His head felt like a boulder atop a pillar of stone, rocking … rocking.

  When John Wilkes Booth regained consciousness, the pain in his leg was barely noticeable. The two men were standing over him.

  Dr. Mudd said, “The splint is on, Mr. Boyd. How do you feel?”

  “A little weak,” said Booth, “but I’m not hurting much.”

  “Good. Now, your friend is in a real hurry to get going, so let’s sit you up and see what you think about riding a horse.”

  Herold helped his friend to a sitting position, and though Booth felt a bit light-headed, he said, “Not bad. I think I can ride.” His thoughts ran to the sentries at the Navy Yard Bridge, who by now had probably learned of Lincoln’s assassination and had advised the authorities that the assassin and his accomplice had ridden into Maryland. “I’m sure I can ride.”

  “Actually,” said Dr. Mudd, “you shouldn’t ride a horse for a few days. You’re suffering from shock. You should stay here and rest.”

  Booth shook his head. “Can’t do it, Doctor. We’ve really got to get home. Just give me some of that painkiller stuff to take along the way, and we’ll be going.”

  Mudd sighed. “Then while I’m preparing some laudanum to send with you, why don’t you sit down over here on this chair? Rest just a bit longer before you try sitting in the saddle.”

  Booth’s brow puckered. “Can I stand on my left foot, Doctor?”

  “Yes. Just be careful as you put your weight on it. The splint will keep it from hurting too much. It would really be best if you would use a crutch under your left arm for a while when you walk. Then you could keep from putting too much weight on the foot.”

  As he spoke, Mudd went to the medicine cabinet and began to pour some laudanum powder into a small cone-shaped paper container.

  “Do you have a crutch, Doctor?” asked Herold.

  “Yes,” he replied without looking up. “I sell them for two dollars.”

  “We’ll take one. Now, we also need to pay you for your work. What do we owe you?”

  The doctor finished filling the paper container, twisted the top to close it, and handed it to Herold. “Well, let’s see, Mr. Smith. I suppose ten dollars would cover it. Nine dollars for the work and a dollar for the laudanum he’s taking with him. With the crutch, it’ll be twelve dollars. By the way, it’s two teaspoons to eight ounces of water when you mix the laudanum dosage.”

  Herold nodded and slipped the paper cone into his jacket pocket. “James, come over here and sit on the chair as the doctor said, while I pay him.”

  “I can pay him,” Booth said stubbornly.

  “You just sit down on the chair,” said Herold, grinning. “You can pay me back later.”

  Booth eased off the table slowly and gingerly stood on his feet. “Little pain, but it’s not bad.” With that, he limped to the chair and sat down.

  When the doctor had been paid and had placed the crutch in Booth’s hand, Herold said, “Okay, James. Let’s go. Your mama’s waiting. I’ll go bring the horses around here to the front of the office.”

  Minutes later, Muriel Mudd came in from the house and watched with her husband as the two men moved outside and Booth used the crutch as he approached his horse. The men talked for a couple of minutes, and decided that Boyd should ride on Smith’s horse with him, at least for a while.

  When they were settled, with Smith riding behind Boyd, they rode away with Boyd’s horse being led by the reins.

  Standing in the open door of the modest frame office, watching the two men ride away in the moonlight, the aging physician placed an arm around his wife. “Honey, something about those two fellows just doesn’t ring true.”

  “Really?”

  “Mm-hmm. Something says they didn’t tell me the truth about why they’re riding at night.”

  Muriel sighed, a shiver going through her body from the cool night air. “Well, I guess it doesn’t make any difference to us. Your job is finished.”

  “Yep. Sure is,” he said, shrugging his bent shoulders as they turned and entered the office, and he closed the door behind them.

  As they were riding down the road, Booth said, “So where do you suggest we go, Dave?”

  “We need to keep heading south, that’s for sure. “Let’s just go on down to Lexington Park, even though your mother isn’t really there.”

  “But what if the Federals decide to check with that doctor, since they probably know my leg is injured, and he tells them we were going to Lexington Park?”

  “We won’t stay there long, but at least it’s a large city. If we move around, nobody will notice us.”

  Booth shrugged. “Okay. For now, Lexington Park it is.”

  By the time the sun was lifting its rim over the eastern horizon, Booth’s pain was starting to make itself known. “Dave, I’m gonna need to take some more of that stuff.”

  “We’re coming up on Golden Beach,” said Herold. “Since it’s a good-sized town, I’ll put you over there in the forest to hide, and go in and get us some breakfast. It’s been a while since I’ve been in Golden Beach, but I remember a couple of cafés. It’s best that we not be seen in town together. Who knows what news might have gotten here by now? Anyway, you can take the laudanum with your breakfast.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Some thirty minutes later, Herold chose a spot in a dense part of the forest, looked around, and said, “Nobody should see you here.”

  Herold dismounted, then helped Booth down. While Booth stood leaning on the crutch, Herold tied the horses to a couple of small trees, then dragged a fallen log from between a couple of bushes. “Here. Sit
down.”

  Booth carefully eased down onto the log, using the crutch to balance himself. His face showed the pain he was now experiencing. Herold said, “You take it easy. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  Booth watched his friend threading his way through the trees. It took only seconds for him to vanish from view.

  The twenty-seven-year-old man who had shot Abraham Lincoln thought about his mother, who lived in a rural area outside of Baltimore. He knew she would be proud of him for exacting vengeance on Lincoln. Though the Booth family lived in Maryland, they were Southerners at heart, and the day after the Civil War was officially over they had a family gathering, and all agreed that Abraham Lincoln was a blight on the country.

  Booth’s mother had even made the statement that the “New America,” as it was now being called, would never reach its potential with Lincoln in the White House. His actor brother Edwin had reacted to their mother’s words by saying, “If I had the intestinal fortitude, I’d catch ol’ Abe out in the open and shoot him dead.”

  Adjusting himself on the log, John Wilkes Booth smiled. “Well, Edwin, you needn’t be concerned about ol’ Abe, now. I took care of him.” He thought on it a moment. “Hah! But you probably already know that by now.”

  Booth wanted to go to his family so he could gloat in what he did, but he knew the Federals would be keeping an eye on his family in case he showed up there.

  In Golden Beach, David Herold moved down Main Street and soon came upon the Chesapeake Café, which was already busy with a good number of customers in booths and at tables. The clock on the wall indicated that it was ten minutes after seven.

  Approaching the counter, Herold told the friendly man who greeted him that he needed two breakfasts to go, and told him what he wanted.

  After writing the order down, the man said, “I suppose you’ve heard about the president being shot.”

  Feigning ignorance, Herold put a shocked look on his face. “Shot! No. What happened?”

  “That Shakespearean actor John Wilkes Booth crept up behind Mr. Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre last night and shot him in the head.”

  “Oh no! They caught Booth, I take it.”

  “No. He got away. In fact, he and an accomplice are somewhere in Maryland right now. Union cavalry patrols are swarming all over the state, looking for them high and low.”

  “Mmm. I see. Well, too bad the president is dead.”

  “Oh, he isn’t dead.”

  Herold’s jaw slacked. “I thought you said Booth shot him in the head.”

  “I did. But a wire that came to our police chief at six o’clock this morning said Mr. Lincoln is still alive. Mrs. Lincoln is at his side.”

  “Hmm. I see.”

  “Well, excuse me. I’ll get this order to the cooks.”

  Herold moved to an unoccupied table and sat down. Four men at the adjacent table were talking about the assassination attempt. Herold heard one man marveling how the president could still be alive. The others agreed.

  Another man then told how late last night, the sentries at the Navy Yard Bridge told army officials that John Wilkes Booth and a man who gave his name as Harold Smith had given them a story about having to get to Beantown in a hurry and were allowed to cross the bridge. This had taken place less than two hours after the president had been shot.

  Soon the food was ready, and packed in a cardboard container. Herold talked the man into selling him a cup, paid him, and hurried down Main Street, dreading to tell John that he had not killed Lincoln, after all.

  Because of the increasing intensity of the pain in his leg, John Wilkes Booth slipped off the log, lay flat on his back on the ground, and rested his head on the small end of the log.

  He closed his eyes and whispered, “Come on, Dave. This thing is getting unbearable.”

  Even as the words were coming out of his mouth, Booth heard footsteps. He opened his eyes and saw his friend hastening through the forest toward him.

  Drawing up, Herold frowned and said, “You all right?”

  “Yeah. I had to lie down to ease the pain. It’s getting pretty bad.”

  “Well, I’ve got a cup. First thing will be to get the laudanum in you. Then you can put breakfast on top of it.”

  Booth watched as Herold poured water from his canteen into the cup, then put what he estimated would be the two teaspoonfuls of laudanum and stirred it with his finger. Kneeling beside Booth, he said, “Can you sit up?”

  Without replying, Booth did so. Herold handed him the cup, and Booth gulped it down, making sure he got the last drop.

  Herold sat down on the log and took the food out of the cardboard container. Laying it before Booth, he took his own food and said, “Better get it down, John. Otherwise that laudanum might make you sick to your stomach. We still have a way to go, and I don’t need you passing out on me.”

  Booth chuckled and put a mock sneer on his face. “Don’t worry, pal. Lincoln’s dead. Nobody can stop me now.” As he spoke, he reached for a biscuit with ham and cheese layered inside it.

  The dread inside David Herold was building. While they ate, he told Booth how he had learned from the friendly man at the counter in the café that the Union Cavalry was swarming all over Maryland looking for “that Shakespearean actor John Wilkes Booth” who had shot President Lincoln and his accomplice.

  Booth swallowed a mouthful of food. “Didn’t take them long, did it?”

  “No. I heard some men at a table in the café talking about it, and one man told them how the federal officials had talked to the sentries at the Navy Yard Bridge late last night. They identified you, of course, and told the officials that your partner had told them his name was Harold Smith.”

  Booth had taken another bite.

  “I think we’d better get out of Maryland as soon as possible, John,” said Herold. “We’ve got to get into Virginia.”

  Booth swallowed the food. “You’re right. As soon as possible.”

  Herold cleared his throat nervously. “Uh … John … there’s something else I need to tell you.”

  Booth didn’t like the tone in his friend’s voice. He was about to take another bite, but stopped short, frowned, and looked at him warily. “What’s that?”

  Herold cleared his throat again. “Well … that man at the counter in the café also told me that Lincoln is still alive.”

  Booth sucked in his breath. “He’s lying! I put that bullet in Lincoln’s head! It had to have killed him instantly.”

  “The man would have no reason to lie. Those men in the café I told you about; they were talking about what a wonder it is that the president is still alive. By some miracle, John, the man who set the slaves free is still alive.”

  Booth glowered, his body stiffening. His eyes flashed with fire. “He can’t live! He just can’t! I laid my life on the line to rid the world of him, and—” Booth jerked in a spasm of pain.

  Herold laid a hand on his shoulder. “Settle down, John. You’re gonna make your leg worse.”

  Booth relaxed and nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. How can he still be breathing, Dave? A bullet in the brain means instant death.”

  “Maybe you missed his brain. But with a slug in his head, how’s he gonna live? Maybe he’ll still die.”

  “I hope so,” Booth said with a tremor in his voice. “Dave, we need to work fast on getting outta Maryland.”

  “Yeah. We sure do. I just thought of somebody who can help us.”

  “Who?”

  “I know of a Maryland man who was a Confederate agent during the War. His name is Thomas Jones. During the War, Jones helped many Confederate couriers cross the Potomac River back and forth between Maryland and Virginia. He lives in the Tall Timbers area on the Potomac, near Maryland’s Zekiah Swamp, southeast of Lexington Park about seven or eight miles. Jones knows the shoreline well. He can help us find the best place to cross and take us in his boat.”

  “You say he lives in the Tall Timbers area, but you don’t know exactly where?”
/>   “No, but with a little ingenuity, we’ll find him.”

  “Sure. We need to get to Thomas Jones real quick, Dave.”

  “You feel like riding your horse, or do you want to ride with me some more?”

  “The laudanum is taking effect. Let me try riding my own horse.”

  The fugitives rode steadily southward toward the Tall Timbers area of Maryland, but only at a leisurely trot.

  When night fell under heavy clouds, they camped in the woods near Leonardtown. Herold went into town and returned with food. Booth was given another dose of the laudanum mixture, then as they ate, he said, “Dave, did you hear anything in Leonardtown about Lincoln still being alive?”

  “No. But I heard more about Union army troops combing Maryland with a vengeance, desperately wanting to catch you. The federal authorities in Washington are calling you the coward who shot President Lincoln, and are saying when you’re caught, they’re going to hang you publicly on Pennsylvania Avenue right in front of the White House.”

  For an instant, a blood-freezing image rose at the back of Booth’s mind: his lifeless body hanging at the end of a rope with a crowd of people looking on with pleasure. He shook himself mentally. “Coward, huh? What do they mean, coward? I had the guts to walk right into Ford’s Theatre, climb the stairs to the private boxes and shoot the big-shot president, didn’t I? Lots of other people wanted him dead, but I was the only one who did anything about it. Where do they get the gall to—”

  A flash of lightning high in the clouds cut off Booth’s words, and was followed instantly by a deep rumble of thunder.

  Herold looked up. “There’s an old shack about a hundred and fifty yards from here. I noticed it when I was going into town. It’s abandoned, I’m sure. We’d better get to it.”

  “Let’s do it,” said Booth.

  More lightning provided light for them as they led their horses toward the shack, with Booth limping along, using his crutch.

  Suddenly the rain came in a downpour, accompanied by a powerful wind. Branches whipped at their faces and caches of water tipped from overhanging tree limbs, soaking their clothes and hair. The horses whinnied as the galelike wind seemed to push them back. Booth and Herold leaned into the wind, heads down, struggling for every hard-won step.