Then spoke the leader again.
“Brothers, you have been initiated into one of the most important Orders that have ever been established on this continent, an Order which, if its principles are faithfully observed and its objects diligently implemented, is destined to regenerate our unfortunate nation and to relieve the white race from the humiliating condition to which it has lately been reduced in this republic. It is necessary, therefore, that before taking part in the labors of this association, you should understand fully its principles and objects and the duties that devolve upon you as one of its members.
“As you may have gathered from the questions that were posed to you, and which you have answered satisfactorily, and from the clauses of the oath that you have taken, our main and fundamental object is the maintenance of the supremacy of the white race in this republic. History and physiology teach us that we belong to a race that nature has endowed with an evident superiority over all other races, and that the Maker, in thus elevating us above the common standard of human creation, has intended to give us dominion over inferior races from which no human laws can properly deviate.
“We know, besides, that the government of our republic was established by white men, for white men alone, and that it never was in the contemplation of its founders that it should fall into the hands of an inferior and degraded race. We hold, therefore, that any attempt to wrest from the white race the management of its affairs in order to transfer it to control of a black population is an invasion of the sacred prerogatives vouchsafed to us by the Constitution, and a violation of the laws established by the Deity.
“It then, becomes our solemn duty, as white men, to resist strenuously and persistently those attempts against our natural and constitutional rights, and to do everything in our power in order to maintain in the republic the supremacy of the Caucasian race. This is the object for which our Order was instituted, and in carrying it out we intend to infringe no laws, to violate no rights or to resort to no forcible means, except for purposes of legitimate and necessary defense.”
***
Most of the procedure was familiar to me in a strange, unknown manner. What was it? What seemed so familiar about these rites? Why were their imprecations and general systems so within my grasp? I knew the answer.
Until then it had only been a rumor, like the alleged collaboration of one Shakespearean play or the contended sole authorship of another. But to the player, he who reads again and again, memorizes and performs those lines night after night, there could be no mistake. One man’s voice is as distinguishable in the written word as his vocal pattern or phrenologic profile. The words themselves demand it. There is a quality in their syntax which, when pronounced, sings differently, uniquely from any other.
Albert Pike. The Scottish Rite’s Sovereign Grand Commander, North America’s leader of the world’s largest fraternal organization. The frontier lawyer who rose to fame and position within the fraternity of Freemasons and then cast his lot with the Southern cause at the beginning of our Civil War, questioning the motives and methods of the pretended movement toward union.
The author of state constitutions, tracts on state’s rights, translator of ancient Indo-European, Greek and Hebrew texts. His knowledge of the American Indians and fluency in numerous of their dialects predisposed him to write treaties enlisting the red man’s sympathies and aid to the Confederacy. His entreated brotherhood bound the tribes of the Cherokee, Muskoki, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw nations to do all in their power to take and return any Negroes, horses, or other property stolen from white men.
The greatest compiler of Masonic arcana, his knowledge of man’s philosophical depths, led him to self-imposed exile before the war was ended. Quitting his commission in the armies of the South under circumstances echoing a breach of power and purpose, Pike fled to Canada before he was to have been tried in a martial court for outrages committed by the frontier soldiers and Indians under his authority. Whether or not he had sanctioned the cruel methods of his command would never be known. Shortly after Andrew Johnson succeeded the presidency, a pardon was issued to all outstanding war criminals in an effort to extend the healing arm of the war’s end—as it was said Lincoln would have done.
Outcast it would seem, by both North and South, stripped of his lands, titles and honor, Pike was yet the presiding officer of an entire and ever-united continent of brothers. What he willed had three million fraternal ways toward assistance, even from across the Canadian frontier. What he should command would be done and with honour, by any of Masonry’s adherents, regardless of flag or apparent political bias. And, as with Pharaoh in times of old, the chain of command was as immense and incalculable as the Great Pyramid itself. Obvious for its might, sublime in the uniform secrecy of every stone.
While Pike ably moved well outside the bounds of general scrutiny, the rumours of his involvement with the Klan were not unknown. In a way they were natural. Having had more than a hand in the development of the current form of the Freemasonic ritual, the association was understandable. And not just for the comparative ranks and titles and jurisdictions that were so common to the two organizations, but in a strange way its aims as well.
To aid the white man, in a republic established by white men, for white men alone.
I had heard this before, but only now, after witnessing the rite itself, did I know it to be true. I have heard his voice within the utterance of the words, seen his thin lips part the wiry gray mass of his long beard to give them shape. I felt his ominous presence behind each participant this night, but mostly I saw his power and influence in the eyes of Boston Corbett, now known as James Thatcher, the man whose life revelation had appropriately been in the city of Pike’s birth.
***
I caught him unawares as he exited the building, now alone.
“Tell me! Tell me who paid you!”
“Or what? Wouldst thou kill thy fellow man?”
He howled again, his lunatic howl. The crippled wolf ensnared by steel, daring pure destruction. In flight he had been urged for survival, in captivity he knew only rage.
“Thou couldst not suffer me to endure more than I have already,” he glowered. “And at mine own hand, brother. At mine own hand!”
It was true, though I had scarcely envisioned his crippled gait for the truth of which it spoke; knew what it represented but not wholly. Behind the glint of the mad eyes and flashing smile was the madness of a mind so tormented it had long since led its victim to an act of self-abasement so absolute, even exile was no punishment for him.
I pitied him and feared even having him in my grip, but he could not be at my mercy. He was right. He had already fallen prey to his own mercilessness, his fanatic view of a heavenly promise’s required duty, and bore easily what I could never—lovelessness and worldly exile.
***
There were dozens of secret fraternities, each with dozens upon dozens of chapters. The Knights of the White Camellia, the Golden Circle, even that group to which my father and my brother Edwin belonged and from which Hand had finally to explain my signet ring and much of his frequent intelligence had come, the Freemasons. The Know-Nothings, too—my political party of choice, though short-lived, were of this type and boasted formidable social and political power. But none, even the Royal Arch of the Masonic brotherhood, held as much sway over the minds and spirits of its members as the Circle Society, the Ku Klux Klan.
As with the other organizations, Klan membership was confidential and bestowed only upon those whose trusts and loyalties had been tested. They were then sworn under oath. This oath, or solemn vow as it was styled, carried with it a series of penalties so grievous and gruesome that even if one were not to take them literally the mere gravity of their pronouncement would be enough to impart a binding nature. And there was no shortage of stories about the impious or treacherous brother who disappeared entirely, leaving others only to guess at his true fate.
Divine law was invoked, but man’s justice, too, w
ould intercede wherever the former might fail. The stories of vanished brethren were ever absent of details, but these could be inferred by even the dullest of imaginations, perhaps all the more readily.
***
“Gift and call. Everything is gift and call,” explained Corbett. “What He gives freely to us, bless His name, and that which He would call upon us to freely do. He gave you a kind of talent, I suppose. You squandered it, and He called on me to end your prodigal path.”
“He did not call on you. Surely you know your God is mightier than this. What you heard was the calling of a man.”
“He called on me through this man.”
“Yes, but which man? Which man?”
“It does not matter. He was but another tool. Like myself. Like you.”
“It matters to me. It matters now. Who is this man?”
“A messenger. One of the Elohim.”
“An angel? Really? Is this another grandiose ceremonial title borrowed by your Klansmen?”
“He has no form. He takes only that which he needs. Why should I help you? What we are doing now is not His work. It may be. But it is not. It is more like yours, Wilkes Booth. But hatred and murder are a kind of purging. Atonement for what has gone before. Contrition. A sacrifice for the inevitable good to come. You hate the niggers. They hate the niggers and immigrants. I only hate myself. We must trust to God’s love and find the way of His will. Yes, some good may come when a man sees his own reflection in the burning of a cross. The shadows are elusive but they are long and they are there. Even in the light of morning, their scorched shadows are there.”
“Was he there tonight?”
“He is always here.”
“Was he there tonight?”
***
The three of us feasted on cracklins. If such a feast is possible with the gristle of pork fried until it is brittle and not the least tender. And yet it seemed enough for me then, despite the breaking of my fast from red meat. I felt at last close to the end of my search. What had been a kind of frustration with Corbett was yet a victory. For meeting him at all, for the glimpse within his soul our meeting had provided.
The major was due back at camp any moment, having chosen again to nurture his natural aspect rather than eat with the likes of our two companions. He never hesitated to call them by the same name as every decent white man. And while the major had never held any formal education, he had learned the sciolist tact of the carnival and prided himself that, even for his accent, he never spoke with the ‘dese ’n datss’ so common to his race.
Then this young buck, who with his father had accompanied us all the way from Chicago, presumed nothing of the kind. He spoke right out with his cant as comfortably as he might address the English queen. And something of his style allowed that thought more acceptable of him than ever it would be of the otherwise articulated major.
“Blame my buttons! D’em e’nt d’a same men ez you’ns wuz aksin’ fer t’day,” his skin glimmered in the dark and his eyes shone like moons in their sockets as he was the first to sight the intruders.
“How can you be sure?” I questioned, remarking their masks and robes.
“Cuz,” he flashed with perfect teeth, “E’nt none ob d’ese w’at walks on a limp, nor none w’at owns d’em fancy polished boots as d’ose I seen t’day. I sho’ ’mired d’em boots. ’N t’ot how’n d’ey wud perdy near inbite o’r follin’ wi’d all d’a moonlight be bouncin’ off!”
By this time I had joined his smiling humor, but could not help then wonder, "Who are they then?" And, "Where are the others?"
“I gots a feelin’ we’s gonna finds out,” he tendered with sudden gravity before again falling silent and watchful.
“Demon,” I heard him whisper, and laughed to think it was only my freakish friend. “Pa!” he called again as he ran toward the flaming timber.
Hand’s small, sharp features poked up just above the rise of the other side of the ridge. They seemed frozen with a strange kind of fervor as he furiously whipped his horse. He looked toward me with the blank expression of fear that I had known in him but once. Reflexively I continued to stifle a laugh, yet unaware of the horrible truth.
“Who’s scaring whom?” I wondered as I looked at my fellows. But they did not look at me, and they were not laughing.
No fewer than twenty horsemen followed Hand’s mount. I started instinctively toward them when the younger of my companions tackled me from behind while his father threw off his coat to squelch our campfire.
“Dis ain’t no place fo’ da likes of us,” breathed my subduer half atop me and with his huge hand tight around my mouth. “Nor dem wha’s wid us!” he nodded as much to himself and the others as to me.
As Hand’s captors maneuvered him into position under a great live oak, one man and his horse solemnly oversaw the action from atop a commanding knoll, high hoods and long, dark capes lending a phantom evil to their aspect. I saw myself hurling my body at this man and grabbing him about the neck. I could feel the veins swell and the face pale as I screamed out my anger, then realized I was still pinned and silent on the ground, a helpless spectator.
The short legged and bootless body writhed helplessly among the ropes atop its equally nervous mount. Without warning, a switch cracked on the spine of the animal, the reflections of a dozen torches in its glassy eyes, causing it to rear halfway and charge ahead, riderless. Hand bounced up for a moment before falling back to one side, straightening with the tension of the rope. His body jerked a single, mighty spasm and quickly relaxed, bobbing slightly before it twisted lifelessly in one direction, then the other. His right foot seemed pointed deliberately toward the ground, while the other rested in a natural position.
The task complete, the other horses and their riders rode solemnly and quickly away. A hunter’s moon began its slow descent on the heels of the dog star as a nearly audible fog settled in the valley. In the distance, hoofbeats of an unknown breed could now be heard making their way north-north-east through the night. Only then did my companions stand up to remark the scene, one of them drawing an experienced knife as he walked numbly toward the tree. I sat up but was otherwise unable to move.
The dwarf, my true and only friend, was dead.
Entr’acte
The Diary
The flags draped low over the balustrade of the presidential box, so much that, from the seats below, we might have felt a certain connection with the loge occupants. But there could be no such thing. The flags would sooner drag upon the boards of the stage. The forward position of the proscenium boxes made that doubly true. And it was so.
All seemed quiet and complete overhead. Even the rumored and probable snoring of the president was as soon the echo of jubilant fireworks as the rumbling of some distant and persistent cannon. For though Johnston’s rebels were still afield, and one might wonder if there would ever be a peace, tonight it had arrived.
The theater was dotted with soldiers—blue uniforms trimmed with gold, newly pressed. No sooner the attire of war than the suits and gowns amid which they beamed of their victory. But then, the Capital had scarcely been the litmus of truth those several years. More like some deep forest pool’s reflection of a windy and over-clouded day. Swim in it and create the ripples; drink from it and taste its chill; look deeply into it and see only your own face. This night, the images were everywhere. Frozen grins and postured profiles, ready for the photographer’s art or any else. Who could guess at the collective dream?
From the moment the curtain was raised for the opening act there seemed a business in the air beyond expectation. There was a low murmur adrift like the waxing utility of bees. Taylor’s phrases seemed wholly different. The words were no longer his: their expressions those of the actors; the actors’ movements the notions of the stage manager. Nothing was its own. The very scenery belonged to a different play, yet to be written, the perspectives to a different world, where atmosphere and oxygen did not exist, except in some cherished memory.
And up there, somewhere just to the right of the stage and its dreamlike production, there sat the man who controlled all, whose mind had given rise to that slumbering absence, whose stirring would then signal the time for all to awake and view again the day that had been postponed. That hand that held the folded program might have been his. The leg crossed comfortably at the knee, his leg. The figure that leaned toward him, a minister of his wishes with eyes that looked into his eyes to find them looking back. Or was it he?
My wife and I only dreamed he would be there that night—My husband first learned of it as we entered the lobby—My parents had forced my attendance with the promise of his presence.
If I had known I might have prepared myself. I might have dressed differently. Perhaps not. But, surely he would have. She looked fine. We might have been dressed for church. It was Good Friday, after all. But those seats were forty times more comfortable than some stiff, wooden pews in a stuffily incensed church.
Mrs. Mountchessington exited in a flurry and a single player stood upon the stage. He had only just delivered his lines with a certain, unexpected enthusiasm when a shot rang out. The phantom ruffian shouted, jumped, glared and ran. The house around me stared and shook before it rose. That was all I knew.
Act IV
Contrition
“Useless!—Useless!—Blood! Blood!!”
Reported last words, “John Wilkes Booth”
Scene I
Father,
Mother,
Sisters all,
God, and myself, I have lost by my fall.
I had never thought of him only as a dwarf. An oddity. A thing. But there limp in the moonlight it was all that was left for him to be. And it was important for me to view him exactly that way. Not as the mock military officer. Certainly not as a friend. Not as anyone who had ever been close to me. Who had, himself, been responsible for our both being—at that moment, one dead, one barely alive—in the fracturing moonlight.
Lincoln's Assassin Page 20