Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape. Stanton’s henchman Lafayette Baker takes Christy’s body to an embalmer. Booth and Herold join across the river in Maryland.
Through the trees, Booth saw the two-story frame house with a wide porch. He could not bear the pain to get down off the horse.
John Lloyd, the Surratt tavern keeper, walked out with an unsteady gait to greet them.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” Lloyd shouted.
“He’s drunk,” Booth whispered as he leaned over to Herold. “Go inside and get the guns Mrs. Surratt has left for us. Get the things as quickly as possible.”
“Would you like a shot of whiskey?” Lloyd asked.
“Oh yes,” Herold replied.
“No,” Booth corrected his partner. He winced at the throbbing and changed his mind. “Get a bottle to take with us. But hurry.”
In a few minutes, Herold and Lloyd came out of the tavern. Herold strapped the carbines, ammunition and field glasses, wrapped in brown paper, on the back of the roan. He then put the bottle of whiskey in the saddlebag. Finally he mounted the bay mare.
“He’ll tell you some news if you want to hear it,” Herold said as he tried to steady his horse.
“I’m not particular. You can tell me if you think it proper,” Lloyd replied.
“I assassinated the president,” Booth said.
“And we may have killed Secretary Seward too,” Herold bragged.
“May have?” Lloyd asked with a snort. After a pause, he slapped his beefy hand against his head. “You mean this is what all these shenanigans are about?”
“We stabbed him a lot,” Herold replied. “We don’t know for sure if he died. We didn’t stay around that long to find out.”
“You got me roped into a murder plot? Dammit! Well, keep my name out of it. And you better pay me for the whiskey too!”
Herold pulled out a coin and tossed it to the tavern keeper.
“Now get the hell out of here. And remember, you don’t even know my name. Get it?” Lloyd hissed as he caught the coin in mid-air. He turned back to the tavern.
Another hot spasm shot up Booth’s leg. “We must get to a doctor somewhere.”
“I don’t know of any around here. Last doctor I knew died last winter.” Lloyd shouted over his shoulder before he entered the house and slammed the door.
“You said all these people were going to treat us like heroes,” Herold said.
“He’s a drunk. Drunks don’t count. We’ve got to find a doctor.”
As they turned their horses south on the road through Charles County, Booth found the pain to be unbearable. The exhilaration of the evening had ebbed away. He prided himself on his ability to endure pain. Once he took a pocketknife and cut a cyst out of his neck in the dressing room right before a performance. He ignored the anguish and went on stage, remembering all his lines and performing all his acrobatic stunts. But this time he could not disregard the suffering. He needed medical help.
After a few more miles, Booth began to recognize the landscape. They passed through Bryantown and a mile down was St. Mary’s Catholic Church. He attended mass there back in December while on a search for some real estate. Someone told him Dr. Samuel Mudd had several acres that he might be willing to sell. After mass, Booth introduced himself on the church lawn. He could tell by the doctor’s manner that Mudd found him charismatic.
“So what do you say?” Booth remembered saying with a smile. “How much for a few acres?”
“Oh, land’s way too cheap now that the damn Yankees ended slavery,” Mudd told him, “so I’m not selling to anybody right now.”
“Well, I’m also looking for a horse.”
“Don’t have any,” Mudd replied. He motioned to a large burly man who was just walking down the church steps. “There’s my neighbor. He’s always looking to sell a horse.”
The doctor introduced them and told his neighbor Booth wanted to buy a horse.
“Oh yeah, I got a nice little brown saddle horse that would be perfect for you. Good price too.” The big man paused to look Booth over. “You ain’t a damned Yankee, are you? You talk like a damn Yankee.”
“Hell, no. I’m a Confederate through and through,” Booth replied. “I’m an actor. That’s why I talk the way I do.”
“That’s good, ‘cause I hate those damn Yankees.”
“Who with any common sense doesn’t hate Yankees?” Booth practiced his charm with a light laugh.
The man looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “I send stuff across the Potomac all the time. You know, contraband.”
“God bless you, sir.”
“If you don’t mind,” Mudd interrupted, “my wife is waiting in the carriage. I’m sure you two gentlemen can conclude your business without me.”
After Mudd walked away, the man leaned into Booth and whispered, “Sam’s a good man but he ain’t got the guts to be a good rebel.”
“I see,” Booth replied, nodding. “But, evidently, you do.”
“Damn right. I wait until dark of the moon, then I row my boat down at Nanjemoy Creek, across the Potomac and land at Matthias Point in Virginia.”
“Very interesting,” Booth said, stroking his square jaw. “Very valuable information.”
Later in December, Booth walked down a Washington street when he saw Mudd staring into a shop window. He called out to him. As he approached the doctor, Booth noticed a slight frown cross the doctor’s face before he smiled and extended his hand.
“What a pleasant surprise, Dr. Mudd,” Booth said, unctuously.
“Yes, I’m in town for some Christmas shopping for my wife. Well, it was a pleasure meeting you again, but I don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time—“
“Do you know John Surratt?” he interrupted.
“Yes, I do. Why do you ask?
‘I’m still interested in buying some land, and the Surratts are known for being major landholders.” Booth failed to mention that Surratt was part of the Confederate underground.
“His mother’s boardinghouse is just a few blocks over from here,” Mudd said. “Let me give you directions so I can be on my way, if you don’t mind.”
“That would be kind of you, sir.” Booth looked over Mudd’s shoulder down the street and saw two well-dressed young men walking toward them. “If I’m not mistaken, isn’t that Mr. Surratt behind you?”
Mudd turned to look, blanched a moment then smiled wanly. “Yes, it is. He looks as though he is on his way to an appointment. Perhaps we shouldn’t interrupt.”
“I think you overstate his demeanor,” Booth replied with an insistence in his tone. “Please introduce us.”
As the two young men came closer, Mudd called out to Surratt who smiled and approached them with his hand outstretched. “Dr. Mudd, what a pleasant surprise.” He glanced at Booth. “And who is this? Please introduce us.” Upon hearing Booth’s name, Surratt beamed. “This is also a pleasure. I think we share many friends.”
Booth detected an emphasis on the word friends and nodded in agreement. Surratt was known among Southern sympathizers in Washington as a man well acquainted with the Richmond countryside, valuable knowledge for anyone who considered kidnapping the president and holding him in the rebel capital.
“And let me introduce my long-time friend Louis Weichmann. We went to school together and now he lives at my mother’s boarding house.”
As Booth shook Weichmann’s hand he noticed the unusual stripes on his blue trousers. “Those pants you wear, Mr. Weichmann, look like a uniform.”
“As they should,” Weichmann replied with a smile. “I work at the war department for William Hoffman, the Commissary General of Prisoners.”
Booth stiffened. “Oh, I didn’t realize we were in the presence of one of President Lincoln’s minions.”
“Hardly a minion, sir,” Weichmann said with a laugh. “I take my salary from the Union government but my sympathies are entirely with the South. I have no doubt the Confederacy will flourish—“
“You might want to be careful with your words, young man,” Mudd warned, his eyes darting about the street. “You don’t know who might be passing by, picking up words here and there.”
“Then we must continue our conversation at my hotel,” Booth offered. “I serve only the best whisky.”
“That sounds grand, don’t you think, Louis?” Surratt asked.
“Mighty grand,” Weichmann replied.
“Then I suggest you young people enjoy each other’s company,” Mudd interjected. “I must be on my way.”
As the rain slackened on the Bryantown road Booth looked for the sign to Mudd’s house. Within a few moments, he saw it: “Samuel Mudd, M.D.” After they reached the house, Booth hesitated, remembering Mudd’s eagerness to distance himself from Booth, Surratt and Weichmann on the Washington street at Christmas. Perhaps he would not be so pleased to see him again. Booth tapped Herold on the shoulder.
“I’ll wait here while you go to the door. Don’t tell him who I am.” Booth paused. “Tell him I fell off my horse and hurt my leg.”
He watched as Herold banged on the door until the doctor opened it, hurriedly pulling a coat over his shoulders. Herold pointed at him, and Mudd motioned to him to come in. As Booth hobbled toward the door, he kept his head down. As much as he thought he would be welcomed as the hero who shot and killed the tyrant Abraham Lincoln, Booth was not entirely certain, not even with Dr. Mudd.