Day Nine

by Clayton Spann

Thursday, May 7

  Shortly before noon Bryant alighted from the trolley as it stopped outside the Executive Mansion. She was relieved to see few people on the sidewalk.

  This morning when she left for her canvas of hotels, a horde of angry petitioners argued here with Lamon and Derrickson. Today petitioners could not even get onto the front driveway. At Jack’s insistence the entire grounds were now off limits. More troops had been brought in to throw a cordon about the perimeter. Visitors admitted were frisked, including members of congress. Only the cabinet was excepted.

  Jack was still not satisfied. He feared Aaron Price might slip in disguised as a soldier. Jack installed a second layer of guards immediately around the Mansion. This layer was manned entirely by the Bucktails, who all knew each other. No one got beyond without clearance by Jack, Lamon or Derrickson.

  What a change. During the briefings at Camp David, she had been stunned to learn of the minimal security around Lincoln. He was a sitting duck. It was a miracle he survived until Ford’s Theater.

  She was further surprised to learn that Lincoln considered his safety lay in God’s hands. His wife, the Marshal, and Secretaries Stanton and Seward had all begged he take basic precautions. Lincoln would yield for a while, then throw off the restraints.

  Until Jack and she showed up, the President would often bolt from the Mansion without accompaniment. At any hour, to go any place. During summers, when the President and family resided at the Soldier’s Home three miles away, it really got insane. The President commuted from there to the Mansion. On the return leg at night he sometimes rode alone.

  The improved security was winning Jack a new friend. At breakfast this morning—Bryant’s last attendance at a meal with Mary Toad Lincoln—the First Lady had actually smiled at Jack. She even addressed him as “Eddie”. Jack ate it up.

  Through the mercifully quick meal the First Lady neither looked at Bryant nor spoke to her. And Mary Toad bridled each time the President said something to Bryant. Twice she cut her husband off in mid sentence.

  From now on Bryant would take all her meals either in the basement with the help or over at the Willard. Last evening she had eaten at the hotel with the President’s assistants, and both said she was welcome to join them anytime.

  John and Stod had also warned her about the First Lady—who they called the “Hellcat”. They said Mary was unreasonably—they meant pathologically—jealous of any young woman her husband conversed with. Apparently even if the woman was trying to save her husband from assassination.

  Mary Toad had to be nuts. Bryant revered Abraham Lincoln, he was one of the greatest men of all time. But he was the last man to sexually appeal to a woman. The President honestly could double as a circus freak. Lightning should strike her for thinking that, yet it was true.

  Abraham Lincoln could never have gotten elected in modern times. Ugly, gawky men with a high pitched voice wouldn’t bother running no matter how well qualified. In 2015 Lincoln probably couldn’t win town mayor.

  Bryant found Jack chatting with Lamon on the North Portico. Both men smiled at her. Lamon tipped his hat. She noticed a basket at Jack’s side.

  “Any luck?” asked Jack.

  She shook her head. “They must be lying low.”

  “If they are,” said Lamon, “Baker will ferret them out. Or they may have just skedaddled.”

  “Hill, I’m going to take Lillian over to the Park. Would a half hour be alright?”

  “Stay as long as you want. Derrickson will be back soon to relieve me. I’ll eat then.”

  “Thanks.” Jack picked up the basket. They went down the portico steps.

  “That lunch?” she asked.

  “Yup. I had Cornelia pack us something.”

  “I hope you tipped her.”

  Cornelia was the long time black cook. Yesterday she had graciously made Bryant a late breakfast.

  “Tried to. She said Mrs. Lincoln would have her hide if she did.”

  Bryant refrained from mouthing “the bitch”. The Hellcat ought to be the one Naylor was coming after.

  Crossing wide Pennsylvania Avenue, they had to dodge wagons and also what Stod had euphemistically called “horse apples”. She barely missed a couple of fresh ones. At least the fly ridden piles didn’t smell as bad as human excrement. Or that damnable canal just off the Ellipse.

  This city was a pest hole. She was doubly glad they had shot her full of vaccines.

  “That’s Seward’s house,” said Jack when they reached the other side. “Lincoln often goes there.”

  He nodded toward a handsome brick townhouse that sat just to the east of Lafayette Park. That bit of information had not been in the briefings.

  She was impressed with how much Jack knew about Civil War Washington. On the ride to Frederick Jack said when he was a kid, his father twice brought the family east to D.C. Jack swore they visited every relevant building and statue.

  Phillip Mauer continued indoctrination with swings through Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. They took in a dozen battlefields. They spent three days alone at Gettysburg—one for each day of the battle.

  “Everything you need to know in life you can learn from Gettysburg,” his father proclaimed.

  Jack had laughed derisively.

  What a burden for Jack. He was one of America’s greatest patriots, and his father one of the worst traitors. How it must tear. And Jack’s brother had been worse than the father. Whatever good Jack did, he probably felt it could not wash clean the family name.

  They found a bench beneath a flowering shade tree. She took a second took at the stately tree, which Jack said was a horse chestnut.

  As they sat she asked, “Think anyone will shoot us if we take off our hats?”

  There many people strolling the leafy, well tended park. Everybody wore hats, even the grubby people. Today she had traded her enveloping bonnet for a simple topper. She still didn’t like anything on her head. Back home she wore hats only at weddings—and funerals. There had been plenty of funerals the past eight years.

  The only good thing about a hat here was that it hid the part in the middle of her hair. The part made her look like a dork. Didn’t matter if all the other women did their hair the same, she hated it.

  “Yeah, let’s,” said Jack.

  He opened the basket to reveal freshly baked bread, a wedge of cheese, and apples. Cornelia had included two mason jars filled with beer.

  Middle of the day, but what the hell. She and Jack had been warned not to drink the water and they religiously complied. Since arrival in 1863 only coffee, tea, wine or beer had passed their lips.

  They made sandwiches of the cheese and bread, then eagerly ate. The beer, on the strong side, tasted good washing the food down. She would not have minded getting plastered on the beer. She would have minded even less Jack kissing her in this dark shade.

  She flushed. Why had that jumped into her head? Good God.

  Jack must have noticed the burn on her cheeks.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes. Just the beer, I think. It’s pretty strong.”

  He laughed. “No state limit here on alcohol content.”

  She loved it when he laughed freely like that. Then, as always, he quickly turned serious.

  “I don’t think she’s here,” he said.

  “Who? Naylor?”

  “If she pushed it, they could have been in Washington last Friday afternoon. In time to get Lincoln as he and Mary took their carriage ride at four. Before any possible warning from us.”

  “They would have had to gallop all the way from Mechanicstown.” Trains would not have gotten them to Washington before midnight.

  “They could have—and should have. Fast was her best chance. So why didn’t she take it?”

  Bryant sipped from her mason jar.

  “I’d say she wanted to be sure she and Aaron didn’t get caught,” she said. “Shooting Lincoln in th
e street would really risk that. And here they hang people pretty quickly.”

  “Aren’t you starting to wonder if she’s in 1863?”

  She chewed her lower lip. Yes, she had begun to doubt. The former president should have already tried for Lincoln, or one of his key generals. Naylor had to know agents from 2015 would be close behind.

  “Well?” asked Jack.

  “She’s in 1863. I can feel it.”

  “That’s a logical reply.”

  Jack looked at her with those narrowed eyes that she had seen him use on others. Use on those he believed just didn’t get it. It was an insulting look.

  If Jack really were her husband, they really would be having an argument. She had never let former husband Morton talk to her with condescension. She never let anyone.

  She didn’t flare. Instead she took a long breath. Then she said, “Whether here or not, you know we have to stay as long as possible.”

  “Yeah.” He spat out the word.

  “We have to assume Lincoln is still an active target. You said yourself, he is the glue that holds the Union together. Naylor may have been about to strike, but your telegram to Lamon arrived just in time. The new security stopped her cold. Now she’s probably looking for holes. She and Aaron still have seven weeks to pull this off.”

  Jack took a swig of beer.

  “That’s a lot of weeks,” he said.

  Yes, it was. Especially since she and Jack didn’t know if they would last even a month.

  Yesterday in their bedroom she and Jack had stood against a door while the other used a knife to notch their height. They would monitor height daily. The warning signal would be when they started to lose at least an inch a day. They would have to scurry to Transit One soon afterwards.

  “When we leave,” said Bryant, “we have to make sure Lincoln keeps security tight until early July. If he makes it to July 4th, we win.”

  “What’s to stop her from hiring people to finish the job if she can’t?”

  “Nothing, I suppose.” That was a worry; Lincoln would not extend the security measures indefinitely. “But how could she be certain hired help would follow through? Once she’s gone, why risk their necks? Just take what she paid and go to Vegas.”

  Jack took more beer. “So you think she’s here?”

  “I do.”

  “It makes so much more sense to go straight to 1901 and take out Hitler.”

  “Then she risks Röhm becoming Führer.”

  “That’s baloney. Hitler’s the only one who could bring the Nazis to power. With him not around, I bet the army would have taken over after Hindenburg died.”

  “Jack, we can debate until our heads explode. Doesn’t change anything. We have to stay.”

  “I still can’t believe Aaron would take part in killing a president.” Then he cursed. “I should be in LA with Kim and my granddaughter. Not here.”

  Bryant sighed. But here they were. And, yes, where were Naylor and Price?