The Lincoln Conspiracy (22 page)

“Temple, I have it!”

Augustus was standing, reading aloud from the Booth diary:

“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 ride 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.

T
EMPLE WAS CARTING
the dirty water from Fiona’s bath and dumping it at the side of the house later that afternoon, when Sojourner crossed over from the hospital.

“There’s a sight,” she cried. “Police Chief McFadden.”

“I’m not the chief of police, Sojourner.”

“You are very chief, and I know my chieftains. I’ll call you how I see fit. Now, we seen all you gathering and firing arms for a day and a half and none of us even thought about leaving the hospital until you were done with your ruckus. My concern is that Augustus and that sweet wife of yours ain’t coming into harm, because I am certain nobody came here for the two of them.”

“They’re right as rain, and you should join us inside.”

“Truth told, I’d be awful teary if anything happened to you, too, Chief McFadden, because you’re stand-up. I worry less about you, though—your type maintains in rough moments. Augustus is our scholar and your Fiona has a heart, and I’ll save my worries for them.”

“They’ll both be glad you’re here.”

Augustus had wrapped up the Booth diary in one package and Mrs. Lincoln’s in another. Both were on the table next to an open carpetbag holding his clothes and a few books. The Colt he had retrieved from the floorboards was next to the bag, and when Sojourner entered, he was poring over a small stack of pages he had transcribed from the Booth diaries.

“Will you take this into the alleys for me and make sure it’s safely hidden there?” he asked, handing her the Booth diary.

“Y’all right, son?”

“I am. And I hate to be full of requests, but would you have two spare suitcases in the hospital for Fiona and Temple to borrow for a few days? They’ve been out of their own home for some time and will be vagrants even longer now.”

“Assuredly.”

Fiona, brushing her hair in the bedroom, heard Sojourner’s voice and ran out to meet her. They were embracing when Temple came inside.

“Fast friends,” he said.

“Li’l piece of starlight here,” said Sojourner. “And it looks like we’re gettin’ crowded.”

Nail was at the door with two stacks of clothing and a leather billfold. He put them on the table, pulling his hat from his head and greeting Sojourner.

“Jack Flaherty.”

“Sojourner Truth, and I’m departin’ so I can do my chores for Augustus before the sun hides. Wishin’ all of ya wellness,” she said, holding the diary close to her chest as she began marching out the door.

Temple stopped Sojourner and bent down to whisper in her ear, pressing a note and some money into her hand as he spoke to her. She nodded, patted his arm, and went on her way. Temple then turned to the bundle of clothing Nail had brought him: two pairs of trousers, two shirts, socks, and long johns. Fiona’s pile had two walking dresses, pantalets, a corset, and a corset cover.

“Mr. Flaherty, you are an invention!” Fiona said, delighted. “I find corsets a murderous strangulation and will have to ignore that gift, but these are the first fresh clothes I’ve had in days. My sincerest regards for your courtesies—and your protection.”

“Nothing of it. One of them dresses is fancier than the other. Temple and I were thinkin’ it might make sense for you to have a more fashionable cut, seeing that you’re traveling with Mrs. Lincoln,” Nail said. “We’ll be back up here to fetch all of you in an hour or so, and then we’ll make our way to Swampdoodle.”

Fiona went into the bedroom to pack her clothes, and Temple sorted through the pile that Nail had brought him. Stuck between the shirts and trousers was a fat billfold, stuffed with about $2,000 in greenbacks. He held it up for Augustus to see.

“Cogniacs?” Augustus asked.

“I would never know,” Temple replied. “So I will have to ask our boodler. If they are true, then we are well financed.”

L
ATER THAT EVENING
, a telegram for Allan Pinkerton arrived at the Willard just after supper, and a hotel clerk delivered it to him in the lounge, interrupting his brandy and cigar. He gave the clerk three Indian heads and stepped away from his group to read his message privately, as he did anytime he received a telegram:

Pinkerton smiled to himself and sat back down to enjoy his brandy, watching the Willard’s lobby swell with visitors arriving to partake in the Grand Review.

N
ail housed Temple, Fiona, and Augustus in a three-room shack abutting the warehouse where he made his cogniacs. There were two beds in one of the rooms, a single bed in another, and a common washbasin and some chairs in the third. Other than that, the shack was empty, soured by the stench off the Tiber Canal, an odor that crawled across every path and room in Swampdoodle. After spending Sunday night discussing their plans for the following days, they all fell into a deep sleep.

Temple awoke ahead of the other two early the next morning, and when he stepped outside, he found Nail sitting in a chair facing the shack, his Enfield resting on his lap. His legs were stretched out in front of him, and from the look of his eyes and the muss of his hair he had been keeping watch all night. He sat up as Temple walked outside, glad to have the company.

“Some folks are talking about General Sherman, saying Stanton was worried about letting him in the District with all of his troops,” Nail said. “They aren’t letting Sherman sit in the reviewing stand near the President’s House on the first day. It’ll just be Johnson, Grant, and Stanton: two drunks and a bully.”

“President Johnson and Grant may be drunks, but General Grant is a leader. And Mr. Stanton is a complicated man.”

“Well, to get your chance to speak with him tomorrow you’re gonna have to get close to him. Have you thought on that?”

“I have. Still thinking. But until I arrive at the solution, I have something else for you. We’ve made more sense of some of the pages from the Booth diary, and I’d like you to look at them.”

Temple first gave Nail a copy of the Vigenère table and the slip of paper with
MARKOFCAIN
on it. Nail eyed the cipher and smiled.

“Booth was rather taken with his own drama, was he not? Makin’ his shatty little deed biblical.”

Temple gave him four telegrams and Nail spread them out on the ground, putting rocks on each of them to hold them down. He read through all of them several times, murmuring as he did so and letting his finger slide along under each name, stopping at names that, while decoded, were still a mystery:

Nail read the notes several times and became so enmeshed that he didn’t notice that Augustus had awoken and walked out of his shack to join him and Temple outside. When Nail was done parsing the notes he looked up and nodded a hello to Augustus.

“It looks like they wanted to pack off with Lincoln originally—kidnap him to Richmond, maybe?” he asked. “They probably realized they could never get out of the District alive with Abe in tow.”