That had not occurred to Lee. Despite reading of Lincoln’s assassination in the Picture History of the Civil War, he still found the idea of political murder in America as alien as that sideways world wherein the South had lost its war for freedom.
Thinking of that other world, and of having seen those big men elbowing through the crowd, made him suddenly, dreadfully certain who the “they” doing the shooting were. “The Rivington men!” he exclaimed, and tried to break free of Judge Halyburton’s grip. “Let me got” But the judge clung to him, limpetlike, with all the strength in his unwounded left arm.
Bullets kept flying, with the extravagant frequency that marked the use of repeating weapons. Through his own startlement, through the rising tide of shouts and screams from the crowd, Lee noted that these repeaters, whatever they were and to whomever they belonged, sounded different from the AK-47s to which he’d become accustomed.
He also noted that, while the assassins had failed to slay him with their first shots, they were not giving up. All but one of the marshals who had served as ceremonial guards in front of the platform were down, dead or wounded. The sole unhurt man had his repeater on his shoulder, but hesitated to fire because of the crush of people between him and the gunmen, and because of the innocent people behind them. The assassins had no such compunctions.
Lee finally twisted free from Judge Halyburton. He leaped up onto the platform, only to be knocked flat by Jefferson Davis. “Stay low!” the just-become-former President bawled in his ear. As if to underline his words, another stream of bullets buzzed by.
The platform was a charnel house, blood and bodies everywhere. Wounded men shrieked. Mary’s chair lay on its side, two wheels in the air. Ice ran through Lee. “My wife,” he gasped. He had wanted her to be able to see his moment of triumph. Now—”Mary?” he said again. Davis did not, or perhaps would not, answer him.
The crowd surged like the sea gone mad. Most people were trying to flee the assassins, but some men moved purposefully toward them. Amidst the continued chatter of the strange repeaters, single pistol shots began to bark. A fair number of citizens habitually went armed, and almost all of them had fought in the Second American Revolution. After the initial shock, their instinct was to hit back.
The marshal with the AK-47 fired three quick rounds. Then he reeled backwards; the rifle flew from his hands as he clutched at his neck. A dignitary in frock coat and top hat snatched up the weapon and began to shoot with a confidence that showed he had been a wartime infantry soldier. Within moments, three other men grabbed fallen marshals’ rifles and followed his example.
But the assassins kept shooting, too. Lee wondered how that was possible, given the fire now coming against them from every side and their lack of any cover save the panicked folk around them. Yet the repeaters that were not AK-47s snarled on and on; men and women toppled and screamed. More bullets cracked by, some just above Lee’s head.
After what seemed forever but was, Lee’s pocket watch insisted, only a couple of minutes, the assassins’ weapons at last fell, silent. Jefferson Davis cautiously raised his head. When nothing happened, he let Lee up.
“Dear God!” Lee groaned, getting his first long look at the slaughter all around. He’d known the aftermath of battle ever since his days in Mexico, more than twenty years before; during the Second American Revolution he’d seen more slaughter than one man had any business knowing. But never in his worst nightmares had he imagined a firefight in the midst of a crowd of civilians—combat was for soldiers, not innocent bystanders.
If the murderers out there had ever heard of that rule, they laughed at it. Men in silk cravats and men in farmers’ overalls, women in faded calico and women in glistening taffetas bled and moaned and cried, for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And up on the platform, where the assassins had concentrated their fire—
Lee had trouble telling who was slain, who wounded, and who merely splashed with other people’s blood. Then he saw that Albert Gallatin Brown, for one, would never get up again; the new Vice President of the Confederate States had a neat hole above his right eye, while the back of his head was a white and crimson horror of blown-out brains and bone.
Jefferson Davis yanked off his coat, began tearing at it to make bandages to help the injured. Lee knew he ought to do likewise, but he couldn’t, not yet—he’d just noticed his wife’s skirts, behind her overturned chair. “Mary?” he said. She did not answer, but she might well not have heard him through the groans and wails all around. He hurried to her.
Death had been kind, as far as death ever is. She looked surprised, not hurt, but her staring eyes would never see anything again. Blood soaked her breast and pooled all around her; a single round had gone in one side of her throat and, quite neatly, out the other.
As if from very far away, people shouted, “General Lee, sir! President Lee!” The titles reminded him that public duty came before private pain. He made himself turn his head away from the woman with whom he’d shared almost thirty-seven years. Tears would come later, when he had time for them. Now… now someone was yelling, “One of the bastards is still alive, President Lee!”
Even through shock and anguish, that could still surprise him. Like a splash of cold water, it helped clear his head. He said, “Then he must be kept so. We shall have answers for this. Bring him up here at once.” While he waited, he leaned over the edge of the platform, down to where Judge Halyburton sat holding his shoulder with his good hand and using some most unjudicial language. “Your honor,” Lee said, and then again, more urgently: “Your honor!”
“What do you need?” Halyburton growled.
For this day never to have happened. As fast as the thought appeared, Lee forced it down: no time for it, and no use to it. He said, “I believe, and hope momentarily to confirm, that the men who committed this cowardly atrocity belong to the society that calls itself America Will Break. That society has for some years housed itself in the building across from Mechanic’s Hall.” He pointed toward the western corner of Capitol Square. Sure enough, through the trees he saw the Rivington men’s flag still flying. “Will you grant us a warrant to search those premises?”
“Goddam right I will,” Halyburton said. “And if that’s where the snake’s lair is, sir, I’ll tell you to get yourself somewhere else besides here. A good shot could hit you from there.”
“He’s right, Mr. President,” Jefferson Davis said. “Get to cover at once, behind Washington’s monument.” He did not wait for Lee to argue, but forced him down off the blood-soaked platform and then behind the sheltering marble and bronze. At the same time, he shouted,” A guard for President Lee!”
The guard detachment was surely the highest-ranking in the history of the Confederate States, as a good half of its members were generals who had come to watch one of their own inaugurated. They held bared swords, weapons hardly more likely to be useful than the drums and fifes and horns of the bandsmen who also crowded round to protect Lee.
Despite the guards, despite Davis’s warnings, Lee looked around the base of the statue of Washington. More folk than Judge Halyburton alone must have heard what he said about the headquarters of America Will Break, for men marched purposefully toward it through the still-milling crowd.
“This is a hard day for the country,” Lee said. “We shall sorely miss Vice President Brown, as well as the other casualties we have suffered. And—” His voice broke. If he let himself think about and, he would not be able to do what manifestly had to be done. And would wait, would have to wait. Davis set an understanding hand on his shoulder. He nodded gratefully, said, “I hope—I pray—Mrs. Davis is safe?”