And then glaring sunlight washed over him, stinging his eyes with the promise of hope. Voices stirred around him, but he couldn’t see. Hands gripped him, but all he could feel was the loss of the delicate one who had been on his arm. He blinked against the light.
The hands guided him, and gentle words fell on his ears. He climbed into a carriage and settled onto a soft cushion. His heart hammered a rhythm in his chest, the rat-a-tat of the drum line, signaling the battle to come. He tensed, grabbing the sides of the plush cushion underneath him as he began to sway.
“George!”
A voice broke through the sea of muffled sounds and snapped him awake. George blinked at the figure in front of him. The frayed edges of his vision began to clear, and there sat the pale and startled features of Annabelle Ross.
Like having his head ducked in winter water, George awoke from his stupor. “Miss Ross!”
A wide grin split her face. “Oh, thank goodness. Are you all right?”
His gaze darted around the inside of the carriage at Annabelle, Mrs. Smith, the stable hand Gunter, and finally around to the beautiful vision sitting at his side. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I believe so. Forgive me, Annabelle.”
Miss Ross leaned forward. “No forgiveness is needed. I regret it took us so long to get you out.”
“Indeed.” Mrs. Smith watched him in that knowing way of hers. “Any longer and you might not have been the man we brought to Washington.”
Heat crept up his neck, but he could not deny the truth of her words. “How?”
Mrs. Smith waved some papers at him. “We got these from Elmira.”
George took the papers and unfolded them, the words jumping off the page.
Oath of Allegiance.
The words trembled in his fingers and he clutched them tighter to steady their shaking. “My papers were accepted.”
“Yes, George. You are not being charged.”
His eyes darted back up to Annabelle, who watched him intently. Suddenly he realized what had been nagging at him in the back of his mind. “Where is Matthew?”
Fear flooded Annabelle’s eyes and nearly brought his pulse to a halt.
“He has gone to help the search. He will return as soon as Mr. Booth is captured,” Mrs. Smith interjected.
“He signed the papers, too,” Annabelle said softly.
George studied Annabelle, but could find no deception in her open expression. “Matthew signed oath papers? Whatever for?”
The question hung in the air for a moment. “We are not entirely sure, but it would seem that his helping in the search kept him from being held in the prison like the rest of us.”
“So they actually arrested you as well,” George stated with annoyance.
Annabelle nodded, and the look of fear that flashed across her eyes stirred the fire building in his belly. “What kind of people imprison a lady? Is there no end to the Yanks’ deplorable….”
Mrs. Smith cleared her throat in a most unladylike fashion, stuttering George’s words to a halt. “Perhaps, Mr. Daniels, you might recall that all of us present, yourself included, happen to fall beneath such a category?” She plucked an apple from her lap and held it out to him.
George glanced down at Lilly at his side, and she turned questioning eyes on him. Eyes that searched him in such a way that he somehow sensed his reply had a greater meaning than he could fathom. He felt the ire rising within him began to dissipate with each blink of those silky lashes.
He took Mrs. Smith’s offering and gripped the fruit tightly. “Forgive me, you are correct. We are a whole nation once again.”
He was rewarded for his lie with a flash of joy in the mahogany eyes shining up at him. Something twisted in his heart, and he knew he would do nearly anything to keep that look in her eyes.
Heaven help him. He was falling in love with a Yank.
“After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gun boats till I was forced to return wet, cold, and starving, with every man’s hand against me, I am here in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for and what made Tell a hero. And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew am looked upon as a common cutthroat.”
John Wilkes Booth
The days following the assassination
Philadelphia
April 15, 1865
David O’Malley groaned and shifted in his bed. His head throbbed as if it had been beaten with a hammer. He reached up and rubbed his temples, hoping the motion would ease some of the pounding. Perhaps he should dress and go below stairs to inquire if Mrs. Surratt would give him a tincture of opium to ease the pain.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he forced his eyes to open into slits, letting the light in a small measure. As his eyes began to adjust, the room around him became clearer—small, poorly furnished, and most certainly not his boarding room at Surratt’s. Panic surged through his veins and David lurched to his feet. Placing a hand to the throbbing in his head, he took the three strides required to reach the door and pulled on the knob.
It remained firm. His vision began to swim, and he stumbled backward, nearly falling before he reached the bed again. His stomach rolled, filling his mouth with acid. He swallowed down the foul liquid and crawled on top of the tangled mess of bedclothes, squeezing his eyes tight against the pain.
Some hours later, David awoke to a pounding on his door. He opened his eyes and turned to look at it. The pain pressing against his skull had lessened, and he found he could sit upright without losing vision.
The knock came again. David narrowed his eyes and looked about the room for a weapon. Finding nothing, he rose and crossed to the door, but again found it locked from the outside.
“Open up,” called a woman’s voice from the hall.
David wrenched on the door again. “It’s locked.”
He heard a heavy sigh. “Then use your key.”
Key? He patted his rumpled vest. “I do not have a key, as I did not acquire this room. Now let me out!” After a moment, he heard the rattle of the lock and the knob turned. David grabbed the door and yanked.
A startled yelp, and then a portly woman frowned at him from the other side of the door. “Your coin only paid for one night, mister. You’re going to have to get on now,” she stated, wagging a finger in his face.
David looked past the woman and out into the hall. “Where am I?”
The woman crossed her arms over her ample bosoms. “Been sleeping off your drink at the Silver Maiden.”
“What drink?”
The woman laughed, a robust sound more suited to a man than a woman. “My Joe said you’d be a bear today. Sure right enough, he was.” She sobered and regarded David with a frown. “Now, I’m not one to condemn a man on taking his ale. But when he can’t even remember his drink, I say it might be time he stay away from it.”
Memories came crashing down on him. The Grants. The train. Matthew Daniels. The plot….
David’s jaw convulsed. Trying to remember his charm, he smoothed his features and hung his head. “Apologies, madam. I’m sure you are right. Tell me, in what town have I landed this time?”
“Philadelphia.”
“I was with a companion. A giant of a man. Do you remember him?”
She bobbed netted curls. “Aye. He paid for your room.”
David’s grip on the door tightened. “And where is he now?”
She shrugged. “Left last night. Covered the room and breakfast for you, then took off.”
David suppressed a growl that gurgled in his throat. He’d been deceived! He forced a friendly smile, but the bothersome woman still narrowed her eyes.
“You feeling well, mister?”
“Not at all. But I will be out of your way, madam. I need to be on to the train stop.”
She looked relieved. “I’ll be back in a bit, then, to clean your room.” Without waiting for his reply, she hurried away.
David thrust his hand i
nto his vest pocket. Cursing, he searched his trousers. Robbed! David whirled and slammed his fist into the wall. The traitor. The thieving, dim-witted, blasted traitor! He would see Daniels run through now. There would be no more mercy.
He traipsed down the stairs a few moments later to find the husky barkeep giving the plump woman a squeeze on the rear. He turned his eyes away from the crude gesture. He would have never dreamed of treating Eliza like a common tart. The barkeep must have noticed David, because the bear gave the trollop a pat and sent her away.
“Need anything, mister?”
David rubbed his forehead. “Got anything for the throbbing?”
The man chuckled. “Got some coffee. Might help you get rid of the ale effects.”
David eased onto one of the barstools. “I didn’t drink too much ale.”
The man grunted and went around the end of the bar, disappearing to a room in the back. After a moment, he returned with a chipped cup of steaming liquid and handed it to David. “Heard many a man say it wasn’t too much. But you were sure enough wallpapered last eve, friend. Saw you myself.”
David sipped the bitter liquid and regarded the open face of the barkeep. “I’m David O’Malley.”
“Joe Foster.” He took a rag and started wiping down the polished surface of the bar.
“Tell me, Mr. Foster, what exactly did you see?”
The man flipped the rag over his shoulder. “Fellow brought you in here, all limp like, and said you’d had too much ale and had lost yourself. Paid for a room and breakfast, which you missed, and said he had business to return to.”
David’s insides heated with fury. “And you believed him?”
The man paused, taken aback. “Why not?”
David slammed the mug down on the bar, sending coffee splashing out. “That man assaulted me on the train, suffocated me to unconsciousness.” He patted his pockets. “And apparently stole all my money!”
Foster rubbed at his thick chin. “But he paid for your room. If he’d done those things, why not just leave you on the street? Seemed like he cared.”
“Guilt, I suppose, over his betrayal.”
“I’m right sorry for that, my good fellow. It’s a bad spin of things.”
David snorted and picked up his mug. The barkeep quickly soaked up the spilled liquid and then leaned on the bar. “Look, I feel bad, I do. There’s a telegraph station just down the street, and a bank just past that. You can stay another night, if you need, until you can be going on your way.”
David thanked him and started trying to formulate his plan. What to do with the failure with the Grants? And what about the plan for the tyrant….
His thoughts ground to a halt. He looked up at the barkeep, who was busy polishing glassware. “Say, you haven’t heard any sort of news, have you?”
The man tossed the rag over his shoulder again and stepped closer. “None yet today, but you can probably go down to the post and get the latest. Word last night was they didn’t think he’d make it, since he hadn’t woken again.”
David’s pulse slowed. “Who wouldn’t make it?”
The man’s bullish face crumpled. “Sorry, friend. Forgot you missed it. Right tragic.”
David leaned closer. “Missed what?”
The big man shook his head, looking despondent. “The president. He was assassinated.”
Philadelphia
April 16, 1865
Birds warbled overhead, their bright, incessant chirping in contrast with the storm clouds gathering in David’s soul. Across from him, the Silver Maiden stood quiet, an almost amusing disparity to the noise that had pricked at him until the wee hours of the morning; until the Yanks had finally ceased their bluster and returned to their homes. He rubbed his shoulder, the muscles tense from sleeping on the stone floor with nothing underneath him for cushion…if his fitful time upon the floor could be called sleep. A few stolen winks had been all he’d managed before the cook kicked him out even before the first light of dawn. The barkeep’s pity wouldn’t see him on the street in last night’s rains, but it didn’t result in comfort.
This morning he’d been told he wouldn’t be allowed back inside without payment, nor would they allow him to claim the breakfast Daniels had supposedly paid for.
Dismissing his ire over the lack of human compassion—what else did one expect from Yanks?—he turned his attention back to the matter at hand. More news had arrived in waves yesterday, flooding the Silver Maiden and crashing upon his throbbing brain until it all became a jumbled mix of tales, rumors, and bad piano music. After hearing that the tyrant no longer besmirched this world and had moved on to his punishment in the next, David had returned to the pub. The patrons who had gathered there railed about murder, called for retribution, and lamented in their ale until he longed to see them silenced.
The scent of bread wafted across the road and tickled his nose. David grunted and turned his attention back to the newssheet he’d plucked when the paperboy wasn’t looking. He trailed his fingers along the pages. “That cut-rate actor!”
His outburst sent a pigeon squawking and fluttering away in an explosion of feathers. David clamped his mouth shut, but no one seemed to take notice of him, save the riffraff. A few urchins slinked around in the shadows, probing at him with caustic, yet impotent glances. They would be of no concern, and the few people who were about this early in the morning were more interested in their work than in the rumpled fellow sitting on the bench. They likely thought him a drunkard who’d stumbled out of the pub.
His eyes darted back to the broadsheet, still stunned Booth had actually prevailed. He’d shot the tyrant right in the middle of Ford’s! What a scene it must have been. David inhaled with exuberance over the knowledge that the rein of the tyrant had come to a blessed end, and then exhaled with a surge of frustration. He’d been played for the fool.
He could see it so clearly now. Booth had sent David on a frivolous errand to keep him from achieving his goal! While he chased the Grants, Booth plotted and absconded with the glory of felling the true prize for himself! David had been robbed of the glorious justice that had been his to serve, the grand dessert on the buffet that fate had spread before him.
Booth had taken it all! In cahoots with Daniels, no doubt. How had he not known that someone else might turn his dog against him? What had Booth offered Daniels?
David scanned the reports again. No mention of Daniels in the papers. What had Booth given him to make him betray O’Malley, and how had the man avoided suspicion? Daniels had been putty in his hands, doing everything David had commanded. He grunted and flicked his hair out of his eyes. That lout wasn’t bright enough to have come up with such duplicity on his own—it had to have been Booth’s doing. The cur.
David narrowed his gaze at the paper once again, forcing his eyes to focus on the news it contained. Booth had gotten away. That could not be considered news at all. Of course he had escaped. They’d planned out the routes to get them back into Confederate territory.
In fact, it had been David’s maps that had aided the escape. David had shown that traitor the new paths through Maryland and across to Virginia. The paper crumbled in David’s fist. No doubt that even now, Booth followed David’s course, further adding insult to his treachery.
Soon, if not already, Booth would be crossing the river into Virginia, where the South would welcome him with a hero’s celebration. A celebration that should have been David’s!
Well, not if he had anything to say about it. Take his glory, disappear using his map? There Booth had made his fatal error—an error that would cost him dearly.
Potomac River
Maryland
April 21, 1865
David scanned the muddy banks again, but still no sign of Booth. Grinding his teeth in frustration, he tried not to contemplate the possibility that Booth had not followed his maps after all. The very notion was absurd, of course. Besides, he’d been following the route for days now and had twice seen swarms of mounted Yanks crawli
ng over the land like ants. No doubt they were scurrying around on Booth’s trail.
Unfortunately, it had been necessary to swipe a lady’s valise in order to get the funds he needed. He’d slipped away unnoticed, and as he had hoped, found a small purse with Union bills, and better still, a pouch of gold coins, buried beneath bits of lace and taffeta. Thanking fate for shining on him once more, he’d pocketed the money and left the lady’s belongings for her to recover.
According to the paper tucked under David’s arm, Booth remained at large. He swatted away a mosquito and opened the page again. One hundred thousand for his capture. The temptation swirled in him. Two options, but which to take? See Booth dead, or turn him in and use the money to start life anew?
David watched the sun cast rays of violet and crimson across the glittering waters of the river as it began to droop into evening knowing that a new life was impossible. Nothing mattered now, anyway. The South had laid herself down at the feet of the North, and his cause had died with the army’s cowardice. He had no home to return to, no family to try to wash away the stains of war. His only consolation in this horrid affair was that at least the tyrant laid cold and dead while the imbeciles flocked around his coffin.
David sat among the reeds and propped himself against a tree, watching a Union gunboat make another pass. He had no way of knowing if Booth had already crossed, or like David, simply waited for the Yanks to give up on this area and move to another. He plucked a blade of grass and churned it between his fingers, watching the green stain his fingertips in the same way war had stained his soul.
“Oh, Liza, forgive me. I have failed you again.”
The Liberator Series Box Set: Christian Historical Civil War Novels Page 69