The Sapphire Brooch (The Celtic Brooch Trilogy Book 2) (62 page)

“Excellent,” Seward said. “With Sherman occupying Raleigh, Johnston will see the futility of further resistance. This victory should lead to a meeting between the two generals in the next few days.”

Braham was far from relaxed, but forced himself to appear outwardly composed. He didn’t want to alarm the secretary or Fanny. “Johnston won’t like Sherman’s terms of surrender.”

“He’ll have no choice,” Seward said.

Raised voices outside Seward’s room alerted Braham to possible danger.

“Frederick must be chasing a rat in the hall,” Fanny said.

Braham quickly came to his feet. “I’ll see what’s going on. Stay here.” He drew his revolver, held it flat against his back, and slowly opened the door. A tall, muscular man dressed in fine leather boots, black pants, and a jacket was arguing with Bell and Seward’s son. It was Lewis Powell, and he held a small package wrapped with twine.

Braham remained still, but his muscles tightened in readiness. His finger quickly cooled against the steel of the trigger. “Is there a problem here?”

“I must see the Secretary now,” the wide-eyed man said in a terse voice.

Braham couldn’t come right out and shoot the assassin, but he could guard the door and keep him from entering. “He’s asleep. Come back later.”

Powell thrust out the package. “I have orders to deliver this medicine to the secretary and instruct him on how to take it.”

“Tell me. I’ll see the medicine is properly administered,” Braham said.

Powell’s hot impatience quickly turned into the cold stillness of a predator. “That’s unacceptable.”

Braham braced himself squarely in front of the bedroom door, the revolver still hidden. If the bastard tried to gain entrance, Braham would shoot him. “You’re not getting in to see him. Not tonight.”

Powell made a face as if he had heard wrong, and his voice held an even angrier edge when he said, “Step aside.”

When Braham didn’t move, Powell jerked up a knife and slashed, cutting Braham’s forehead. Then, continuing in a downward arc, he stabbed it deeply into the Braham’s shoulder. Braham dropped his gun, swaying slightly. Powell then threw a glancing blow to Braham’s temple. Braham staggered backwards and fell to his knees with the hot trickle of blood dripping into his eyes. In spite of the screaming pain in his head and shoulder, Braham refused to lose focus.

Frederick threw himself at Powell, who pulled a revolver and placed it against the Secretary’s son’s head, immediately pulling the trigger. The gun misfired. Powell muttered an oath and smashed the revolver handle against Frederick’s skull.

The door opened, and the nurse appeared. Powell stabbed the limping soldier repeatedly in his rush toward the bed.

Fanny screamed. “Don’t kill him.”

Wobbly and bleeding, Braham clutched the stair railing and hauled to his feet. Blood streamed down his face and shoulder. He swiped his arm across his forehead but couldn’t staunch the flow. Bracing his injured right shoulder against the doorjamb, and grasping his revolver in his left hand, he took aim at Powell. Blood partly obscured his vision.

Fanny moved into the line of fire. Both Powell and Fanny appeared as wavy figures in a macabre scene. In the best of times, Braham could hit a target with his left hand, but this was closer to the worst of times. With limited vision and two innocent victims in an unpredictable welter, he wouldn’t take the risk.

Gus, the Secretary’s other son, rushed past him into the room and grabbed Powell from behind. Powell threw a blow to his rib cage, then slashed wildly, catching him on the head. Gus dropped, clutching his face.

Fanny threw herself across her father’s body to protect him, and once again put herself in Braham’s line of fire. Powell jumped onto the bed and raised the knife, aiming for the Secretary.

Braham lunged toward the assassin, grabbing Powell’s knife-wielding arm. Using the broken revolver he still held in his other hand, Powell clubbed Braham’s head. Braham reeled, head spinning, and his world pulsed into black.
If he passed out, the Secretary would die.
He lifted his hand and fired blindly at Powell. The explosion sundered the room. Powell lifted his arm and stabbed the Secretary, then kicked Braham in the chest before fleeing the room.

Woozy, Braham swayed as he climbed to his feet again, bleeding from shoulder and head. He stumbled after Powell, who rushed headlong down the stairs, where he continued the carnage by stabbing Emerick Hansell, a State Department messenger standing guard at the foot of the staircase.

Braham wiped the blood from his eyes, and barely able to see, fired again, hitting the window next to the door, shattering the glass. By the time he made it down the stairs and out the front door, Powell was galloping off. Braham planted his feet, braced his left arm against a lamp post, and pulled the trigger, missing the escaping assassin one last time.

Braham ripped off the bottom of his shirt and tied it around his forehead. Returning to the Secretary’s bedroom, he found Seward’s body on the floor with Fanny kneeling in a pool of blood next to him.

“Oh, my God. Father’s dead, he’s dead.”

The vicious slash, stopped finally by the metal brace, had opened Seward’s cheek, and the skin hung in a flap, exposing his teeth and fractured jawbone. Braham put his hand to Seward’s neck and felt a rapid, thready pulse. The secretary still lived.

“I am not dead; send for a doctor, send for the police, close the house,” the Secretary mumbled.

Relieved to know Seward yet survived, Braham said, “I’m afraid for the President. I’m going to the theatre.”

Both Gus and Frederick climbed to their feet, slipping in the pools of blood.

Braham grabbed a towel off the washstand, rammed it into his coat, and pressed it against the shoulder, then he ripped a long strip from a clean sheet and made a sling for his arm. Satisfied he’d done the best he could for his injuries, he stumbled back down the stairs, leaving another set of bloody footprints.

He had to get to Ford’s Theatre to protect the President. His right arm was numb and blood oozed down his coat sleeve and dripped off the tips of his fingers. It took three attempts to mount his horse. The reins were slippery from his blood-coated hand, and his bloody boot kept slipping out of the stirrups. If he could remain in the saddle and reach the theatre, he could warn someone. He galloped away like a crazed man, crossing the unpaved, wheel-gouged, muddy streets. Several times he almost fell off, but managed to keep his seat, grasping the reins and mane as he raced five blocks east and two blocks south to Ford’s Theatre.

As Braham galloped down F Street, he could see an unruly, frenzied mob gathering at the corner of 10
^th
Street. He slid off his horse and pushed his way through the crush of humanity, staggering toward the front of Ford’s Theater.

“Guards, clear the passage. Guards, clear the passage.” Bearers emerged from the vestibule with a small force of guards, shoving gawkers aside. A septet of men supported Lincoln, two at his shoulders, and others supporting his head, torso, pelvis, and legs. They carried him from the lobby, out the doors, and across the stone stairs. The crowd gasped at the sight.

“For God’s sake, take him to the White House to die,” someone yelled from the crowd.

Braham pushed his way through the half-insane mob and faced Doctor Leale, the army surgeon attending Lincoln. With eyes as steady as he could manage, Braham drew his sword from its scabbard and said: “Surgeon, give me your commands, and I’ll see they’re obeyed.”

Yelling over the din Leale said, “Take him straight across the street and into the nearest house.”

Braham fought his way forward, cutting a virtual seam through the mob. Halfway across the street, Leale halted the procession and yanked a blood clot from a hole in Lincoln’s head, tossing the gooey mass into the street. Fresh blood and brain matter oozed from the doctor’s fingers. Stranded, with nowhere to go, the President of United States was dying in the middle of a street surrounded by thousands of frenzied witnesses.

A man opened the front door of 454 Tenth Street, came out on a high, curved staircase, raised a sole candle, and shouted, “Bring him in here.”

The somber bearers carried the President up the stairs and through the doorway, leaving the frantic crowd behind. Braham collapsed on the stairs, holding his saber in a shaking, bloody hand, pointing it at the mob. He had failed to protect his President from an assassin’s bullet, but he was determined to protect Lincoln’s final moments from the hungry rabble.

Braham closed his eyes and blackness overtook him.

69

Washington City, April 14, 1865

C
harlotte stood at
the window in Braham’s drawing room, listening to the chattering and courting of the mockingbirds under the light of the full moon. The shutters were open, and cool air poured in, both chilly and soft, the way spring nights were meant to be. But this wasn’t a normal spring evening. Edward had turned down the gaslights and banked the fires. The darkness didn’t bother her, but a strange stillness, broken only by the singing birds perched in the leafing trees, did. The room’s cool air stroked her arms, and the hairs rose quietly on her skin.

Jack had managed to procure two tickets to the production of
Our American Cousin
at Ford’s Theatre, but she had adamantly refused to go. He, however, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be an eyewitness to one of the biggest events in United States history.

“Braham might succeed tonight,” she had told Jack before he had left for the theatre.

“Either way, I’ll still be an eyewitness to history.”

Charlotte wanted to be as far away from the theater as possible. Jack was a writer; she was a doctor, and they had quite different perspectives on the evening’s events. If she had been there and Braham failed to save Lincoln, she would rush to the mortally wounded President’s side, and in the process earn a place in history—a woman from the future imprinted indelibly onto the past. In her heart she hoped Braham would succeed. How much her life would change when she returned to the twenty-first century didn’t seem to matter right now. She let out the breath she had been holding in a sigh like the April wind. She checked the time on the mantle clock. Lincoln should be at the Petersen’s house by now, brain dead.

Unless…

Her throat was sticky as glue. She turned away from the window, willing the tears pricking the backs of her eyes to stay where they were. Needing to loosen the pasty feeling in her throat, she tilted up her glass of whiskey and gulped. Fire trailed down her esophagus, but the alcohol did nothing to soothe the worry and sadness burdening her heart.

The window curtain fell back into place, and she walked over to refill her glass at the sideboard, but the clatter of carriage wheels and the jingle of harnesses pulled her back to the window. Jack, barely visible in the shadow of the gas streetlights, was helping a man out of the carriage. She watched, puzzled. Was the man drunk? When Jack moved out of the shadow, the light glinted off the man’s blond hair, and she saw his blood-streaked face.

She ran toward the door, threw it open, and dashed down the front steps. Jack had propped Braham against the side of the carriage. Reaching him, Charlotte immediately checked his breathing, since his head hung limp. His breath warmed her check. She pressed her fingers against his neck to feel his carotid pulse—too fast and maybe a little weak, but palpable. Blood oozed from his forehead, and his jacket had a large, wet crimson stain.

“What happened? Has he been shot again?”

“I don’t know.” Jack grabbed Braham around his waist and lifted him over his shoulder. “He was unconscious when I found him.” Jack rushed up the stairs and in the door, leaving behind a trail of blood.

Charlotte followed closely, suddenly missing her hospital, the efficiency of the ER, and the medical advances which could save Braham’s life again. “Put him on the dining room table and get his clothes off. If there’s active bleeding, put pressure on the wound. I’ll get Edward and my bag.” She ran down the hall, calling the butler.

He poked his head out of the kitchen. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Braham’s hurt. Jack’s putting him in the dining room. I’ll need clean cloths and boiling water.” Charlotte ran up the stairs for her medical bag. On her way back down with her supplies, she patted her pocket, touching the brooch. Regardless of what Braham wanted, she refused to let him die.

Jack and Edward had Braham stripped to the waist. Blood saturated both his discarded shirt and jacket. He had a deep gash in his right shoulder, but there was no spurting vessel. She grabbed her stethoscope and checked his lungs. Sounds were shallow but equal on both sides. The knife probably had not punctured his lung, but she couldn’t be sure with him lying down. She would listen again carefully when she could sit him up. His heart rate was fast but regular. His color was good; there was no active bleeding, and his blood pressure was low normal.

Satisfied he wasn’t in any immediate danger, she turned her attention to the shoulder wound. A cut rotator cuff could impair the strength and use of his shoulder. For even a preliminary evaluation, he needed to be awake, and if the injury was serious, he’d require an orthopedic surgeon. Even after repair, it could be months before he had full use of his arm again.