Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape. Stanton’s henchman Lafayette Baker takes Christy’s body to an embalmer. Booth and Herold escape across the river into Maryland where they hide in the Zekiah Swamp. Baker saves Booth’s life at Garrett’s farm.Booth sneaks away to Richmond.
Walking toward the wooden houses, Booth observed residents as they left their front doors open to catch cool air. Some piddled around their yards. Older men with thinning gray hair sat on their steps sipping from liquor bottles. He had better avoid them, Booth decided. He also ruled out the homes where running, screaming children filled the yards. They would be too much of a distraction for the housewives if he were to draw their sympathies. Then he saw young women hanging clothes on the line. No, they could prove too much temptation for romance, and where would he find himself if the man of the house returned to discover Booth in his wife’s embrace?
Finally, he smiled when he saw an older woman, approximately the age of his mother, sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, one hand to her cheek as she stared into nothingness. Booth had found his prey. He limped a few more feet until he was directly in her line of vision before swooning and falling to the ground. His eyes closed, Booth could hear the old woman gasp, walk down the wooden steps and rustling her crinolines as she approached him.
“My dear boy, what have those damn Yankees done to you?” She sat on the dirt road and gently lifted his head to her lap.
Booth’s eyes fluttered open. “Mother?” he asked weakly in an accent associated with the Tidewater region of Virginia. A small moan slipped from his lips before he closed his eyes again.
“Dear Lord, this is just terrible!” Carefully moving his head back to the ground, she whispered, “I’ll be right back with a nice cup of well water.”
A few minutes later Booth was feigning resuscitation as he sipped from the cup. “Please forgive me for passing out like I did. It’s been a long walk from Appomattox Courthouse. Forgive me for calling you Mother.” He took another sip. “I should have known better. Mother died of small pox right before the battle of Gettysburg.”
“You poor, poor boy,” she said, holding his head close to her small bosom. “Don’t you have nobody waitin’ for you back home?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. I ain’t got no letters since Mother died. Of course, Father wasn’t much for words on paper. But he was mighty puny looking when I marched off to war in ’61.” He paused to cough. “If you wouldn’t mind helpin’ me to my feet, I think I feel strong enough to fetch my horse. I left it tied up at that old bombed out theater down the road.”
“You will do no such thing!” She lifted him with a grunt, put his arm around her thin shoulder and began shuffling toward her porch. “You’re in no condition to be ridin’! You need a good meal, a bath, a clean bed and a good doctor to tend to that broken leg of yours.”
“I can’t take advantage of your hospitality, Miz—what is your name?”
“Jenkins, Mary Beth Jenkins. And you are not takin’ advantage of me. What kind of Confederate widda would I be to turn away one of our brave young men?”
“Mighty obliged, Miz Jenkins. My name is Adam Christy, from Port Royal.”
Shaking her head she replied, “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from Port Royal. Never you mind. Now take it easy with the steps.”
“But my horse, I can’t leave it tied up like that.”
“Don’t fret about the horse. I’ll go get it.”
Mrs. Jenkins was good to her word. She took his horse to a livery stable where she paid for it to be fed and cared for. Booth ate heartily during the coming days as his leg continued to heal. He told her how he broke it in a final, desperate defense against the marauding Union soldiers. She related to him how both her husband and son died at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. Mrs. Jenkins allowed him to soak in her copper tub as long as he wished while she fetched Dr. Lawrence who examined him as he sat swathed in soft fuzzy towels.
“Whoever set your leg did a mighty fine job,” Dr. Lawrence mumbled. “You need to stay off it for a good piece of time, and, Mary Beth, keep the bandages clean. I’ll be back in a couple of days to check in on the boy.”
After the doctor left, Mrs. Jenkins helped him into bed. “Now don’t you worry a bit, Adam,” she said. “Adam, a good Bible name. Is there anything you got a cravin’ for?”
“Whatever you have in the house will be all right with me. I know the damn Yankees must have cleaned out your larder.”
She smiled. “We all pull together, and somehow find enough.”
“I would like to see a newspaper, to keep up with what is going on,” Booth added hesitantly. “What am I talkin’ about. I suspect all the papers in Richmond were burned out.”
“Oh no. The damned Yankees didn’t destroy all of them, praise the Lord.”
“Well, if it ain’t too much of an inconvenience….”
“Not another word,” she interrupted him with a smile. “The newsstand is just down the street, and I can be back in an instant.” Mrs. Jenkins paused and leaned in to whisper, “I suppose you heard about what happened to that devil Lincoln.”
Booth’s eyes widened in innocence. “There was talk on the road, but I didn’t know whether to believe it or not.”
“Oh, it’s true all right. They killed the old heathen.” She put her finger to her lips. “It’s not safe to say too much. The damn Yankees have spies everywhere.”
Over the next couple of weeks Booth laid back to relax and heal his battered body. He hungrily read each newspaper Mrs. Jenkins brought to him.
Mrs. Surratt had been arrested. Booth fumed over the injustice of a woman languishing in prison. He felt no compassion for Herold, Atzerodt and Paine. They were all stupid and deserved what they got. On the other hand, he did feel a minor dissipating remorse for Dr. Mudd. His former childhood friends Michael O’Laughlin and Samuel Arnold also had been caught in the dragnet looking for conspirators.
He followed with interest stories about Lincoln’s funeral train which was to retrace his route when he came to Washington City four years ago for his inauguration—Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, and many to come. The trial of the conspirators would be held and executions carried out before the traitor was buried in Illinois. One day Booth sat up in his bed as he read a story about Louis Weichmann being called to testify. To testify! That was another travesty! Booth fumed. Why was he not charged along with all the others?
More questions crowded into his mind. Exactly how did Adam Christy and the short stocky man figure into all this? And why was Edwin Stanton still alive, still making decisions about who will live and die?
The trial would begin the middle of May in the Old Capitol Prison. He reached down and felt his leg. No more pain. He tried walking around the room on it and found he could maneuver quite well, at least for short periods of time. When he decided to move on, to make his way to Washington City to observe the trial first hand, he would need a wagon.
“Miz Jenkins, I appreciate all that you have done for me, but I must be on my way to Port Royal,” Booth lied using his full skills as an actor, relaying his feigned humility and desperation. “I have to find out if Father is still alive.”
“You are in no condition to ride,” she insisted.
“Maybe if I had a wagon….” His voice trailed off.
“I have a wagon in the back. My husband used it in his work. He delivered goods from the mercantile store he ran. He ain’t got no use for it now, bless his soul.”
Early the next morning, Booth hitched his horse to the wagon and gave Mrs. Jenkins a hug, thanking her for all the kindness. Before leaving Richmond, however, he went by the bombed out theater and loaded the actor’s trunk which held his purse of three hundred dollars and threw in the many costumes and props he would need for the coming months. Booth had blood to avenge.