Booth’s Revenge Chapter Two

Lafayette Baker pulled on the reigns of the carriage, bringing it to a halt on the dark banks of the Potomac River.  He picked a spot about three miles downstream from the District of Columbia.  No one rode passed her this time of night.  Very secluded.  With a bored sigh, he jumped down from the driver’s seat and went around to the passenger seat.

First he picked up the plump body of the woman he had just shot between the eyes.  Secretary of War Stanton had selected her from the Old Capitol Prison to impersonate Mary Todd Lincoln.  Now the war was over she was no longer needed and was actually an encumbrance.  Baker walked with a stealthy pace to the edge of the water, threw the body in, watched as the tide caught it and carried it toward the middle of the wide river where it eventually sank.

Next he grabbed the other corpse under the arms.  He was a large man, and Baker would have to drag him.  Stanton had saved this man from the gallows at Old Capitol Prison because he looked like President Lincoln.  For two and a half years he pretended to be the president, said and did everything Stanton had ordered.  For his obedience he too had been shot between the eyes.  Baker rolled the body into the water and kicked it hard to make sure it entered the current.  Soon, it disappeared into the depths.

Baker had no sympathy for them.  They had sold their souls for a chance to live and deserved to die.  They were cowards.  Life had defeated the man and woman years ago, and they just got around to leaving now.

Drizzle began falling from the clouded sky as Baker got back in the carriage and drove it back to the Executive Mansion, but it did not bother him.  The personal guard of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Baker had become inured to inconvenience, pain and guilt.  When Stanton had ordered him to intimidate, kidnap and murder, he obeyed because that was what he was supposed to do without question, as long as he was paid.

Baker was on his way back to kill another person who knew too much about Stanton and his plot to live.  That knowledge was a death sentence.  This is what his life had become, Baker sighed to himself.  He pulled the mud-bespeckled horse-drawn carriage into the trail that led to the basement door of the Executive Mansion.  The young man he was going to shoot in the head did not know he was coming.

After tying the reins to a hitching post, he went to the door, one hand resting on his revolver holster.  Before he could touch the handle, the door opened and an odd-looking little old man bumped into him.  The man wore a tall stovepipe hat and an oversized black overcoat, which dragged on the ground.  He had scared blue eyes, gray stubble on his trembling chin, and his hands shook uncontrollably.

“Who the hell are you?” Baker bellowed, causing the old man to hunch over.

“I’m the president, aren’t I?”

Stanton had told him that a demented janitor was in the Executive Mansion basement.  Baker remembered the night he arrived to remove the body of a Negro servant.  From one of the rooms he heard a voice calling out, “Stop hurting people!”  That must have been this fool standing in front of him now.

“Get out of here,” Baker snapped, impatient to finish the job without further distractions.

“Yes, sir,” the old man replied meekly and then scurried out the door into the rainy night.

Baker told himself he would be glad when Stanton’s mad scheme was over.  He did not think much of it when Stanton informed him of his new duties two and a half years earlier in September of 1862.  It was madness, and Baker found himself in the thick of it.

Stanton had been extremely disappointed in the ability of Abraham Lincoln to conduct a war.  Union troops suffered a series of devastating defeats during the summer, and Stanton could not allow the pattern of events to continue.  He knew he could do a better job than that bumbling idiot of a president, Lincoln.

Stanton’s plan was an elaborate one.  He would find a man and woman in the Old Capitol prison who resembled the Lincolns.  Under threat, they would agree to impersonate the presidential couple.  Then Stanton would abduct the real Lincolns, marching them downstairs to the White House basement where they would stay for the duration under the watchful eye of an armed guard, as he replaced them upstairs with the convict look-alikes.   The duplicate Lincoln would carry out Stanton’s strategies and win the war by the end of the year.  At that time, Stanton would release Lincoln who would thank him for saving the Union.

The plan did not work out that way.  The years passed with no resolution to the war.  Now it was over, and President Lincoln had to die.  Everyone thought Mrs. Lincoln was crazy anyway so no one would believe her ravings about her two and a half-year captivity in the basement.  The imposters were at the bottom of the Potomac River, and now the private who had guarded for the Lincolns during their captivity was about to die.

Private Adam Christy had never impressed Baker anyway.  The private was a thin red-haired boy who could not control himself.  In 1864, Christy had become desperately drunk and tried to rape the Negro cook in the basement.  The colored butler tried to intervene and save the girl, but in his drunken rage, Christy killed him.  Baker came in the middle of the night to clean up the private’s mess.  Christy represented weakness, and Baker hated weakness.

Earlier in the week, Stanton ordered Christy to find someone to kill the president.  At first, the private refused, saying he had already done enough to ruin the life of a man who had done him no wrong, but when Stanton threatened him with prosecution in the butler’s death, he relented.  When he arrived under the Aqueduct Bridge at midnight with an odd collection of assassins—an actor, a drunk and two simpletons–Christy confirmed Baker’s suspicions of his incompetence.

“Is this it?” Baker remembered asking Christy about the group.  He looked at the dark-haired, good-looking one, and recognized him as John Wilkes Booth, the popular actor.  He seemed to be the leader.  “Now.  Tell me something that convinces me you’re smarter than you look.”

“Sir,” Booth had said, pulling himself up to his full stature, “you are no gentleman, and not welcome to our noble endeavor.”

“This noble endeavor is murder,” Baker had replied.  “True gentlemen don’t kill, so get that idea right out of your head.”  After puffing on his cigar he had added, “So what are your plans?”

Booth had said he planned to shoot the president at Ford’s Theater.  The drunk, who could barely speak English, would kill Johnson at the Kirkwood Hotel, and the simpletons would stab Seward to death at his house.  Baker remembered Christy just stood there, staring across the darkness of the Potomac.

“And who will kill Stanton?” Booth had asked.

“I’ll kill Stanton,” Baker had lied.

Just then a bang rang out from down the basement hall, rousing Baker from his reminiscences.  He looked down the corridor and saw light from a kerosene lamp glimmering from an open door.  Good, Baker thought, Christy shot himself and saved him the trouble.  When he walked into the room, Baker smirked, his suspicions confirmed.  Christy lay there on his back, his head in a pool of spreading blood.  Baker could tell by the position of the gun near his hand on the floor that the private had stuck the revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Sighing deeply Baker walked over to the body wanting to get it out of the Executive Mansion and dispose of it in the Potomac as he had the others.  It had been a long day and he wanted to lie in bed, drink a pint of whiskey and fall asleep.  However, when he bent over the body, Baker stopped short as he looked into Christy’s blank eyes.  They were so sad, so young, so filled with pain.  Tears stained Christy’s freckled cheeks.  Suddenly Baker realized whom Christy looked like.  He saw himself as a young man.

Memories flooded back of his childhood in western New York as a short, thin boy with carrot-red hair.  The bullies teased him, pushed him down and kicked him.  When he ran home crying, he received no sympathy from his stern father.

“You got to learn to stand up for yourself,” his father lectured him.  “Get tough or die.”

That was the way life was.  As he grew up, Baker became a mechanic, and his body thickened with muscle and his fists were calloused from all the fights he had won over bigger boys.  His once-red hair darkened into auburn and he grew a beard to hide the appearance of youthful innocence.

From his hometown, he drifted out west and became a vigilante in San Francisco where, in the name of justice, he learned to kill men guilty of a wide range of crimes such as gambling, ballot-box stuffing, treason, robbery and murder.  Eventually, he had killed so many men he couldn’t remember when killing felt wrong.  It came to feel like business.

Baker met a lovely, naïve girl by the name of Jenny and married her.  She was his connection to the world of sane and civilized people.  By 1861, he and his wife returned to New York relatively wealthy.

At the outbreak of the Civil War General Winfield Scott hired him as a spy.  He was promptly captured in Richmond but quickly succeeded in escaping which led to his being hired by the State Department as a detective.  Eventually he joined the War Department where he gained a reputation as a vicious interrogator.  His reputation brought him to the attention of the Secretary of War himself, Edwin Stanton.  Baker did not want to expose Jenny to the dirty world of Washington politics so he bought her a new home in Philadelphia.  There she would be closer than New York but far enough away never to learn of his business practices..

Baker’s transformation from an innocent, defenseless red-haired youth to government-paid assassin was complete.  Baker thought he had lost that tender side of his character forever until he stared into the dead eyes of Adam Christy.  Then all his fear and frailty came rushing back.  The same self-loathing that was evident on Christy’s face was deep inside Baker.  He saw in the dead eyes the realization that Christy had failed his first test of character in his short life, and now everything was over.  Yes, Baker conceded, they were alike. Except for one fact.  When Baker first failed a test of character, he considered it a victory of determination over weakness.

Now it was too late to change, he thought.  Baker knew that he was as dead on the inside as Christy was, lying there in his own blood.  He was an utterly empty machine proficient in the arts of torture and murder.  And what for, Baker asked himself.  For the money?  He remembered earlier in the evening he had confronted Stanton about why he had gone to such extraordinary lengths to put Lincoln in the basement and then plan his assassination.  Baker accused him of doing it for the power.

“And what is it for you?” he remembered Stanton asking in spite.

“I’m a simple man,” Baker had told him.  “I’m not a lawyer.  I’m not smart enough to want more than to be comfortable.  And it takes money for that.”

“So it’s just for the money?” Stanton said.

“You’re a fool, Mr. Stanton.  You think power will make you happy.”

“Neither does money.”

“That’s right,” Baker remembered telling Stanton, “but it makes being miserable much more fun.”

Now, standing over Christy’s body, Baker realized he was wrong.  But if it was not for the money, then what was it for, his life of violence?  Perhaps it was in revenge for all the suffering he endured as a child.  More than likely, he would never know. His heart was so hardened at this point it made no difference.  A knot developed in the pit of his stomach.  He could no longer make himself touch, let alone pick up, Christy’s body.  Baker also sensed his throat constricting, his face turning red and his eyes filling with tears.  For the first time since he ran down the dusty streets of his little western New York town, Baker began to cry.

Moreover, Baker did not merely allow tears to flow down his rough ruddy cheeks, he bawled loudly.  He sobbed; he gasped for breath, feeling the back of his head burn red-hot.  All the emotion he had suppressed throughout the years came out.  The heat from the room became unbearable; Baker thought he would pass out if he did not get out of the building and inhale fresh, cool night air.

He only made it as far as the hallway before falling to his knees.  At first, his stomach roiled and then his diaphragm contracted violently.  He gagged and his eyes bulged.  Before he knew it, he was vomiting on the floor, his head sagging down.  His heaving continued so much that pungent, liquor-laced acid flowed from his nose.  Between regurgitations, Baker moaned loudly, thinking he wanted to die.  From down the hall he heard a door open.

“Cleotis, I told you to stay out of it.”  Baker recognized the Negro woman’s voice.  It belonged to the cook whom Christy had tried to rape.  “That’s white folks business.”

“There’s a sick man out here, Phebe,” the butler said in a low, firm tone.  “That’s everybody’s business.”

Baker’s body twitched again, and he readied himself for another purge, but nothing came up this time. It did not lessen the pain.  He became aware of a large, strong hand on his shoulder.

“Mister, are you all right?”

“No,” Baker rasped.  “Go away.”

“Let me help you clean up.”

“I said go away.”  He struggled to his knees, wiping his sputum-covered mouth and nostrils with his coat sleeve.  “I’ll clean this up.”  He heard the butler take a few steps away.

“The soldier boy’s on the floor in there all covered with blood.”

“The boy’s dead?”  Phebe’s voice was startled and concerned.  After a pause, the cynical tone returned.  “None of our business.”

Baker tried to stand but his knees buckled again.  Cleotis went back to him and lifted him by the armpits.

“Mister, I don’t know who you are but you need help,” the butler said gently but firmly. There ain’t no two ways about it.”

“No, no,” Baker replied weakly.

“Come on in the kitchen and take a seat.”  Cleotis dragged him down the hall and through the door to the kitchen, placing him in a chair.  “Sit here awhile and you’ll feel better.”  He turned to a table and picked up a dishtowel.  “Phebe, get me a bucket of water,” he called out.

“I don’t wanna.”

“Woman, I’ve about had all that I’m gonna take,” he called out, still calm but louder.  “Now get the bucket now.”  Cleotis returned his attention to Baker and wiped his face.  “Let me clean you up a bit, sir.”

“Why are you being nice to me?”

Cleotis continued to wipe.  “I’m a butler, sir.  That’s what I do.”

In a moment, Phebe entered the kitchen with a bucket of water.  Baker looked up and noticed that she was pregnant.

“Is that your wife?” he mumbled, succumbing to Cleotis’ care.

“In the eyes of the Lord, sir,” the butler replied.  “Sometimes that’s the best us colored folks can do.”

After feeling the fresh water on his face, Baker began to think more rationally.  He realized he did need help cleaning up the evidence.

“I didn’t shoot the boy.”

“I know, sir,” Cleotis said, finishing up.  “There now.  You look a heap better.”  He turned to Phebe.  “Get the mop and start cleaning up that sickness out there in the hall.”

“Yes, Cleotis,” she said with a sigh while grabbing the mop from behind the door.

“We don’t want to know no more than that,” the butler told Baker.  “It ain’t healthy.  If you get the body out of here then we can clean everything up and by tomorrow morning, everything will be back to normal.  There never was a soldier boy in the basement of the White House, and that’s a fact.”

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *