ROBERT WALTON - SOCK 1-20

Robert Walton is a retired teacher and a lifelong rock climber withascents in the Sierras and Pinnacles National Park. His publishing credits include works of science fiction, fantasy and poetry.Walton’s historical novel Dawn Drumswon the 2014Tony Hillerman Prize for best fiction. Heco-authored “The Man Who Murdered Mozart” with Barry Malzberg, which was subsequently published in F & SF in 2011. “Do you feel lucky, Punk?” received a prize in the 2018 Bartleby Snopes dialog only contest. Most recently, his story “Duck Plucking Time” was awarded first place in the Saturday Writers short fiction contest.
 His website: http://chaosgatebook.wordpress.com/

SOCK 1-20

​Star Saloon, April 14th, 1865
John Wilkes Booth

​Booth scraped 10th Street’s perpetual mud from his boots before entering the Star Tavern. He strode between busy tables with the poise of a man who is used to being noticed. Indeed, his good looks caused young women to flutter wherever he went, though there were no young women in the Star. Several men looked up from their drinks and recognized the youthful actor as he passed.
            He motioned to Peter Taltavul, owner of the tavern. “I’ll have whiskey and a glass of water. Leave the bottle.”
            “You usually have brandy, Mr. Booth.
            “Not tonight.”
             Taltavul placed a glass of water, an empty glass and a brown bottle in front of the actor. “Enjoy, sir.”
            Booth poured whiskey into the empty glass, set the bottle down and touched his jacket’s right pocket. It concealed his derringer. He’d loaded it most carefully in his room, fitting a brass percussion cap on the nipple beneath its hammer. He would take one shot, one perfect shot.
            He sipped whiskey. A sheathed, horn-handled dagger - his backup weapon- shifted uncomfortably in his waistband.
            A drunken man down the bar called out, “Mr. Booth, you’ll never be the actor your father was!”
            Booth raised his glass. “When I leave the stage, I will be the most famous man in America.”
 

Ford’s Theater, April 14th,
Almira Martin, Lieutenant Thompson
​

​            “Is the President here yet?” Light gleamed from the polished buttons of Lieutenant Thompson’s uniform jacket.
            “He’s coming now.” Almira - tall, dark-haired - turned as President Lincoln, Mary and a young couple entered the dress circle’s side aisle . Like breeze passing over a grassy field, news of Lincoln’s arrival spread through the crowded theater. Actors on stage stopped dead as applause rippled through the crowd and then swelled. The band struck up “Hail to the Chief”.  Lincoln strode on.
            As he walked, he glanced across the upturned faces. Almira waved. Lincoln’s eyes met hers and he smiled in greeting. She beamed in return.
            “You know the President?”
            Almira’s eyes followed Lincoln and his party as they entered their box. “I do.”
            “How?”
            “We met on the battlefield last year.”
            “Yes, you were a nurse when I first met you.”
            “One of Clara Barton’s helpers.”
            “Where did you serve?”
            “Spotsylvania Courthouse, Cold Harbor and the siege of Richmond.”
            “My God!”
            Almira looked into Thompson’s eyes. “I saw rivers of blood and suffering that humbles me still.” She looked down. “President Lincoln took it upon himself to see all of that and much more. He offered what solace he could.”
            “The President visited the wounded?”
            “Every last man, even the Confederates.”
            Thompson nodded. “He is a great man.”
            “The greatest I shall ever meet, Lieutenant.”
            Actors onstage resumed “Our American Cousin”.
 
 

John Wilkes Booth
Ford’s Theater
​

​The stars align for me! Both Lincoln’s man Parker and his driver Burns were at Star’s, drinking. No one guards him! After I’ve pulled the trigger, I shall pin the moment to history.  Sic semper tyrannis! So it goes with tyrants! Ease the door open. Slip in. Secure it behind me so none can interfere. There he is, to my left, in his rocking chair. The pistol warms to my touch. The play’s laugh line approaches. “Wal, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologizing old man trap!”  -  Now!
 

Abraham Lincoln
​

​            It was a pleasant surprise to see Almira Martin in the audience. Such a bright face! One of Miss Barton’s angels - our country can never repay their service. Ah! Mary is laughing as I haven’t seen her do in ages. Tears of laughter, even! That line sounded humorous, but whatever does “sockdologizing” mean?
 

Almira Martin and Lieutenant Thompson
​

​            “That was a gunshot!”
            Thompson turned. “Surely not.”
            “Look!” Almira’s white-gloved finger pointed. “In the President’s box!”
            A cloud of blue smoke billowed over the box’s red, white and blue bunting. “Two men are struggling in the shadows! Who accompanied the President tonight?”
            “A Miss Harris and her escort Major Rathbone.”
            A tall man leapt upon the railing.
            Thompson pointed. “Who’s that?”
            “It looks like Booth, the actor.”
            Booth climbed over the railing, lowered himself, hung from his arms and jumped toward the stage. The spur on his right boot caught on the American flag bunting, causing him to land badly on his left foot. He rose, his left foot turned sideways, and ran limping toward the wings.
            A piercing scream came from the President’s box.
 

John Wilkes Booth
​

​            I’ve broken my foot. I can’t let it slow me.
            “Stop that man!”
            Never. Into the green room! To the stage door, but someone blocks me! It’s Withers, that idiot bandleader. The knife for him! Take that and that.
            Out the door - where’s Spangler? He’s supposed to be holding my horse. The horse is there, but that wretched urchin Johnny Peanuts is holding the reins. I smash his face with the butt of my knife and seize the reins. Up! Up and away!

Almira Martin and Lieutenant Thompson
​

​Mary Lincoln’s second scream ripped through the theater. Fear leapt like an electric spark from shocked face to shocked face. A man shouted: “He has shot the President!”
            Voices cried, “No! No!” Pushing, jostling, the audience suddenly boiled like a kettle on high heat and poured into the aisles.
            Lieutenant Thompson rose. “I must gather soldiers and help bring order to this theater. I will escort you to safety first.”
            “You will not!”
            “Pardon me?”
            “I am a nurse. I’m going to the President’s aid now!”
            “But . . . ”
            “But nothing!” Almira stood. “Please move. Time may be of the essence.”
            Thompson stepped aside. Almira slid by him into the aisle. He called, “When will I see you?”
            “Tomorrow,” she said. “Call in the afternoon.”
            Almira slid between confused men and so came quickly to the President’s Box. Major Rathbone sat leaning against its wall, a pool of blood at his elbow. A short, handsome man - Dr. Leale - leaned over him. Rathbone said, “I’m bleeding to death.” Leale inspected him briefly and stepped into the box. Almira came forward. “I’ll help you, Major Rathbone.” She knelt beside him and removed his jacket. Blood poured down his soaked sleeve onto the floor. She glanced at the men around her. “I need your handkerchiefs, gentlemen - all of them.”
            Within the President’s box, Mary lay with her head pressed to Lincoln’s breast. Dr. Leale lifted her gently. She seized his hand. “Oh, Doctor! Is he dead? Can he recover? Will you take charge of him? Oh, my dear husband! My dear husband!”
            “I will do what I can.” Leale motioned for men to take Mrs. Lincoln to the sofa in Box 8. He turned to the President. “Get a lamp. Lock that door back there and admit no one except doctors. Someone hold matches until the lamp gets here.”
            Men lit matches. Leale studied the President. There was no breathing, no sign of a wound.  He motioned to soldiers in the corridor. “Get him out of the chair and put him on the floor.” They did so.
            Leale lifted the President’s head and lowered it again. His hands came away wet. He opened Lincoln’s right eyelid and saw evidence of a brain injury. He ran his fingers through Lincoln’s hair and found a bullet wound behind his left ear. His touch loosened a blood clot. The President took a shuddering breath.
            Other medical men arrived and crouched next to the kneeling doctor and reclining President. Leale spoke to them, “A bullet is in his brain. The wound is mortal. If we try to take him to the White House, he will die before we get there.”
            Dr Taft protested, “But we can’t let the President of the United States lie bleeding on the floor of a theater!”       
            Leale nodded. “Is there somewhere nearby where we can take him?”
            Dr. Taft turned to Lieutenant Thompson. “Find us a house, Lieutenant, something suitable for the President. We’ll follow along.”      
            Two soldiers held Lincoln’s thighs. Two supported his torso. Dr. King held his left shoulder. Dr. Leale cradled his head. They lifted him, carried him head first out of the box, up the aisle, down the stairs and through the lobby.
            When they pushed open the theater’s front door, they found a sea of wild faces looking up from Tenth Street. Shouts of woe and rage rose like torch flames from the darkness:
            “God help him!”
            “Hang the man who did this!”
            “Hang all the rebs!”
            A short captain of infantry approached Leale. “Surgeon, give me your commands and I will see that they are obeyed.”
            Leale glanced at the houses across the street. A man holding a candle stood on his porch. He motioned for them to come to him. Preceded by soldiers, they carried President Lincoln up the steps of 453 Tenth Street, Mr. William Petersen’s home.

Beantown, April 15th
Dr. Samuel Mudd, John Wilkes Booth
​

Dogs howled, breaking the night’s deep silence.
            “You’ve awakened every dog within miles, it seems.”
            “Please hurry, Dr. Mudd. I only need temporary relief from the pain.” Booth grimaced as Mudd slit his left boot open with a glittering knife.
            “I’ll do my best, young man.”
            “Yes, thank-you, Doctor.”
            A bloodhound next door bayed like a hound of hell.
 

William Petersen’s House
Almira Martin
​

​Soldiers, rifles posted, guarded the entrance of William Petersen’s house. Almira walked up the steps and stood in front of the corporal in charge.
            “The President needs me.”
            The corporal’s eyes rose from the blood-soaked front of Almira’s dress to meet her commanding gaze.  He came to attention. “Pass.”
            Almira entered and walked down a narrow hallway. She passed a parlor on her left, its black horsehair chairs and settee groaning with seated officials, and a stairway on her right. Beneath the stairway was a small bedroom. She stepped through its doorway.
            Oatmeal colored wallpaper covered the walls. A red rug covered part of the wooden floor.  A maple bureau stood to one side. She saw a washstand with a white porcelain bowl and a bed. President Lincoln lay on the bed.
            He lay diagonally - his head against the wall and his feet hanging over the bed’s side - for he was too tall to fit on it otherwise. His head was propped up with pillows, his chin upon his chest.  Three ladies - Laura Keene, Clara Harris and Mary Lincoln - sat nearby on three straight-backed chairs, silent. Almira went and stood beside Mary.
            Many men whose faces she would never remember came and went. The steadfast doctors remained, easing the President as they could. Light grew in the room. After seven in the morning, the President began to moan - deep, disturbing, frightening moans. His breathing became shallow and swift. Then it slowed to a whisper. Suddenly his chest heaved upward, paused for a long moment and finally relaxed.
            The doctors awaited Lincoln’s next breath. It never came. The time was twenty-two minutes after seven. One of the doctors bent over and listened for the President’s heartbeat. The moment stretched until he straightened, removed two silver coins from his pocket and placed them on the President’s eyes.
            Abraham Lincoln was dead.

Maryland Shore, April 22nd
John Wilkes Booth
​

​            Wavelets slapped petulantly against the side of our rowboat. A damp breeze pushed against my face. The smell of mud, heavy and rich weighed the air down. A thin streak of grey light crossed the eastern sky. “David, where are we?”
            David ceased rowing and peered at me. “Not sure - the tide is against us.”
            “Not Virginia?”
            “Not Virginia.”
            “Then turn toward shore. We must be hidden before dawn.”
            “Right.”
            “We’ll try to cross again this evening when the tide is with us.”
            “Right.”
            “Many love the South in Virginia. They’ll applaud what we’ve done and help us when we get there.”
            He began rowing. “Yes, I’m sure of it.”  

On President Lincoln’s funeral train, April 22nd,
Lulu Garlic, Almira Martin
​

​“Are you awake now, Honey?”
            Almira stretched. “Almost, Lulu.”
            “Scoot over a bit. Look out that window.”
            Almira moved sideways across the Pullman coach’s hard seat. “My!”
            Hundreds of people - farmers, workmen, wives, children, shopkeepers, teamsters - stood in the roadway alongside the train tracks, staring at the slowly rolling cars.
            Lulu nodded. “It’s been like that the whole time you’ve been sleeping. There are black faces like mine out there, too.”
            “Many.”
            “They’ve come to see their President pass.”
            “It’s a tribute like no other before.”
            “It is.”
            The faces of America drifted by their window with only the clack and rumble of the train’s wheels to break the silence.
 

Richard Garrett’s Farm, Virgina, April 26th
John Wilkes Booth
​

​            Booth crouched over a stubby candle, a battered book open in his lap, a pencil in his hand. He pursed his handsome lips and wrote. “David and I made it to the Virginia shore nearly three days ago. It has been small comfort to us. Instead of fierce joy at our penultimate act, we’ve encountered dismay and actual grief for Lincoln among Virginians. My refuge is a tobacco barn. My victory feast is stale cornbread and salt pork. Federal cavalry search for us everywhere. I fear they are near.
            “I hear horses, the thump of hooves, the jingle of harness - cavalry!” 

Richard Garrett’s Farm, Virgina
Lieutenant Edward Doherty
​

​I kicked the dusty barn door. “Surrender now and I will assure your safety.”
            Someone answered. “For whom do you take me?”
            “It makes no difference. Come out.”
            “I am a cripple and alone.”
            “I know who is with you and you had better surrender.”
            Booth sneered. “I may be taken by my friends, but not by my foes”
            “If you don’t come out, I’ll burn the building.” I turned to Corporal Hicks. “Pile dry hay by the wall and light it.”
            “Yes, sir.”      
            Booth’s mocking voice called. “Oh, Captain! There is a man here who wants to surrender awful bad.”
            “You had better follow his example and come out.”
            “No. Draw your men up fifty paces off and give me a chance for my life.”
            “I did not come to fight, but we can take you.”
            The barn door opened a crack. David Herold peeked out. “I’m here.”
            “Hand out your weapons.”
            “I have none.”
            “Let me see your hands.”
            He shoved them through the partly open door. “Don’t shoot me!”
            I seized his wrists, pulled him out and handed him over to Hicks.
            Booth shouted, “I prefer to come out and fight!” A shot blasted from behind the barn. I threw open the door and saw Booth, crutch in one hand and carbine in the other. The hay behind him burned with small red flames. He began to fall. I caught him beneath the arms, half-carried and half-dragged him to the Garrett home’s veranda. Blood flowed freely from his neck.
            Colonel Conger inspected Booth’s wound. “Who fired this shot?”
            Corporal Hicks volunteered, “Sergeant Corbett, sir. He said Booth was about to fire.”
            Conger cursed. “I wanted Booth alive. So I could hang him!”
            “He’s still alive,” I offered.
            “Shot through the neck, paralyzed - he won’t see noon.”
            Just after sunrise, Booth asked me to raise his hands. I did so, holding them before his eyes. He gasped, “Useless, useless!”
            Sunlight flooded the farmyard. Birds sang. John Wilkes Booth breathed his last.

*
Springfield, Illinois - May 4th
Lulu Garlic and Almira Martin
​

​An immense hearse, drawn by four horses, entered the Oak Ridge Cemetery. Eight tall, black pompons swayed above the carriage’s ebony roof. Gold filigree, silver chasing and polished crystal all darted sunlight from its flanks.
            Lulu nudged Almira. “I wonder what President Lincoln would have to say about that fancy wagon he’s in?”
            “St Louis shipped it here to be used for him. It’s gaudy - I know - but the sentiment is real.”
            “The sentiment is too late.”
            Almira looked at her friend. “How can you say that?”
            Lulu squinted at the dazzling hearse. “Folks should have honored him and praised him when he could still hear them.”
            Almira sighed. “I hope he can hear them, even now.”                     
            Lulu dabbed at sweat on her brow with a red kerchief. “Have you got your fan, Almira?”
            “Yes, right here.”
            “You’ll need it soon.”
            Almira shaded her eyes and looked up at the sun. “It’s past ninety already.”
            Lulu nodded. “A scorcher.” She glanced at the long train of mourners. “I’ll wager, too, that several men who never saw President Lincoln in a hospital as we did will make us stand in the sun and listen to them carry on about him for too long.” 

​Springfield, Illinois - May 6th
Lulu Garlic and Almira Martin

​“I think your train is boarding now, dear.”
            Almira glanced up and saw a line of people mounting steps into a Pullman coach. “You’re right. I’d best go.”
            “You’ll keep working for Miss Clara?”
            “Yes. I think she has big plans for her Red Cross and I wish to be part of them. It’s good work, Lulu.”
            “It is, but you take care.”
            “The war is over.”
            “One war is over. There will be others.”
            “I’ll take care.”
            “And please greet that young Lieutenant Thompson for me.”
            Almira blushed to the roots of her hair. “Yes, of course.” She took Lulu’s hand. “What of you, Lulu?”
            “Well, I’m free now. President Lincoln saw to that. And I’m not poor. Clara Barton saw to that. She made the Army pay me for our hospital work.”
            “Where will you go?”
            “I’ll go south from here. You recall that I have younger brothers and sisters that got sold before the war?”
            “Of course.”
             “I must find them if I can." 
            Tears welled in Almira’s eyes. "We will meet again, Lulu.”
            Lulu squeezed her hand. "God willing."
            “God willing.”
            “But first I’m going to California.”
            Almira smiled. “To find gold?”
            Lulu laughed. “Because I can.”