What is "alternative history?" Simply put, it's imagining a time and place where history diverged from our timeline to create a different chain of events than the one that makes up our past. Back in 2017, I wrote a short story called "An Interview at Weehawken," in which Alexander Hamilton survived his famous duel with Aaron Burr. I couldn't put that story out of my mind, as my brain kept asking "What happened next?" That question prompted me to start writing my first alternative history novel in 2019, entitled PRESIDENT HAMILTON. Published in 2021, it has enjoyed the strongest start of any of my novels, and is still selling well nine months after its publication.
Writing it gave me a taste for other "What if?" moments in history, and of all those, perhaps the one that has been pondered over the most is, "What if Abraham Lincoln had not been murdered right at the end of the Civil War?" So not long after writing "An Interview at Weehawken," I penned a re-telling of that fateful night in Washington DC, entitled "A Close Call at the Theater." Once more, it was never intended to be anything more than a short story. But that pesky muse of mine kept bugging me with the same question she'd asked about Alexander Hamilton: "What happened next?"
So in January, I pulled up "A Close Call at the Theater" and edited it a bit, and added one word to the title: "Prologue." As of right now, I am seven chapters in to this speculative account of what might have been if America's greatest President had not been cut down at the moment of his victory in the Civil War. And I don't know, yet, how the story ends. But I will say, it has been a marvelous ride thus far! So, by way of an introduction and a teaser, here is "A Close Call at the Theater" - the prologue to WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE.
PROLOGUE:
A Close Call at the Theater
John Parker looked at his
pocket watch and yawned. It was nearly nine o’clock, and the
President was late – again. Mrs. Lincoln glanced at the door of the White
House and sighed. After so many years, Parker figured she ought to be
used to never seeing the first act of a play, but he could tell she was upset.
Not angry – her legendary fits of temper were unmistakable – but disappointed
no less. Finally, at nine on the dot, the front door of the Executive
Mansion opened, and the lanky form of Abraham Lincoln, wearing his trademark
stovepipe hat, stepped out and strode across the White House lawn towards the
carriage.
“The play started thirty
minutes ago,” Mary Todd Lincoln said.
“Good thing we’ve seen this
one before then, eh?” the President replied with a slight chuckle. He was
accustomed to his wife’s moods and knew when to take a light tone and when to
be sympathetic.
“As I recall, we missed the first
act then, too,” she replied. “But that’s all right, Father, I just want
to relax tonight. It’s been such a long time since we had a good laugh!”
“Indeed, little Mother,” he said,
patting her hand. “Makes you wish we were going to a better comedy,
doesn’t it?” Lincoln had been disappointed with ‘Our American Cousin’ the
first time he saw it – it was a vulgar bit of slapstick, not the dry, witty
brand of comedy he preferred to watch.
“They say that the script
has been re-written since the last production, and that Laura Keene and Harry
Hawke are both hilarious,” she replied.
“Well, we shall soon see
then, won’t we?” Lincoln said as the driver whipped the carriage towards
Ford’s Theater.
Parker stood on the running
board of the carriage, his Colt in his pocket, scanning the crowds. As a
Washington policeman detailed to protect the President, big crowds always
made him nervous. Lincoln was unpopular in many circles, and not a few
people wanted him dead. No American President had ever been assassinated,
but a madman had tried to kill Andrew Jackson thirty years before, and anything
could happen. He would be glad when the President was tucked away safe in
his box at the theater. The mood of the capitol was generally
jubilant since Lee’s surrender a few days before, but many Confederate
sympathizers lurked in the city still. Besides, he thought, he’d been
late for duty and had no time for supper; perhaps he could grab a bite – or
better yet, a drink – once the President was tucked in.
It was a short ride from the
White House to the theater, and once they arrived, Parker escorted
the Lincolns and their guests, Major Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris, to
the Presidential box. As they filed into their seats, Harry Hawke,
playing the role of Asa Trenchard, a penniless American adventurer, looked
up and saw them. He quickly ad-libbed the line he was uttering – a
protestation of his worth to his potential mother-in-law – to fit the
occasion.
“Well, I’ll have you know,”
he declaimed, “I am just as fine a gentleman as the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES!” He gestured at Lincoln with a flourish as he spoke, and
the tall man from Illinois tipped his hat to the crowd, who gave him a vigorous
round of applause. Lincoln bowed gracefully, and then gestured to the
actors to continue. As they did, he turned to his bodyguard.
“We are fine for
the time being, Mr. Parker,” he said. “Feel free to sit among the audience
and enjoy the play.”
“Thank you, Mister
President,” said Parker. There was a chair in the narrow corridor right
outside the Presidential box, but it had no view of the stage at all. He
went down the stairs and took a seat near the back of the crowd, and soon was
chuckling along with the rest of the audience at the onstage antics of Harry
Hawke and Laura Keene.
It was late in the
first act, and Parker had not been seated for very long when the
intermission was called. As the gas lights were turned up, he recognized
Lincoln’s coachman, Robert Stark, sitting a couple of seats over.
“Come on to the Lone Star
with me and get a drink,” the garrulous Scotsman said.
“I really shouldn’t,” said
Parker. “I’m supposed to be watching out for the President.”
“Aw, come on, man!” Stark
said. “Lincoln never leaves once he’s in his box. It’s safe as can be.”
Parker shrugged. He
was not a particularly conscientious man - hence his spotty record with the
Washington police - and he was powerfully thirsty. Lincoln would be fine
for a half hour, he reckoned.
The Lone Star Tavern was
crowded, and as they entered, Parker saw the popular actor, Wilkes Booth, get
up and leave a corner table. He nodded at the young thespian as he
brushed by, but Booth ignored him. Theater people - stuck up brats, the
lot of them, Parker thought.
He grabbed a tankard of beer
and was about to join Stark when he saw a beautiful woman seated at the
bar. Parker was married, but he was no more particular about his
marital vows than he was about his police duties. He plopped down on the
stool next to her and greeted the young lady with a grin and a wink.
“John Parker, Washington
Police,” he said. “How are you this fine evening, my lady?”
“I am quite well,” she said
with a friendly smile. “Louise Fletcher, at your service, officer.”
His spirits lifted at that
smile – it was obvious she liked policemen!
“Are you from Washington,
Miss Fletcher?” he asked.
“Mrs. Fletcher,” she
said. “My husband was a Captain in the Union Army, but he died at
Gettysburg. I volunteered for the Sanitary Commission after that, hoping
to help other men like him. I tend to the
wounded in the Soldier’s Home.”
“Very noble,” said
Parker. A lonely widow! His prospects were looking up. “I am a
personal security guard for President Lincoln,” he continued.
“How exciting!” she
said. “Are you off duty?”
“Not exactly,” he
said. “The President is next door watching a play.”
“Then why are you not with
him?” she asked sharply, disapproval written on her futures.
“Well, I just came over to
have a nip -” he started, but she would have none of it.
“You are tasked with
protecting the most important man in America, and you leave your post to take a
drink?” she snapped. “That is terribly unprofessional. If something
were to happen to Mister Lincoln, the whole nation would curse you!”
“Well,” he lied, “I have
been on duty since noon, and I just needed to wet my whistle before I return to
the job. In fact, I ought to get back, I suppose. It was
a pleasure to meet you.”
She snorted and turned her
back, and Parker muttered a few choice words under his breath as he carried the
tankard full of beer back across the street. It wasn’t as if a
potential assassin would try anything in the middle of a crowded theater,
he thought.
The second act was already
underway, and Parker’s seat had been taken by someone else when he
got to it. Grumbling, he headed up the stairs towards the Presidential
box. At least there would be no one to bump his arm and make him spill
his drink up there! He glanced up to where his chair sat in the hallway,
and then gasped at what he saw.
The unmistakable form of
John Wilkes Booth was opening the door of the Presidential box very slowly with
his left hand, and in his right, he grasped a small Derringer pistol. He
was so intent on slipping in unnoticed that he did not see the policeman on the
stairs below. Parker set his drink down quietly, drew his own weapon, and
took the stairs two at a time.
The play was nearing
a climax – the American, Trenchard, had been unmasked as a penniless
fortune seeker, and Laura Keene’s mother was laying into him with a vengeance.
“Mister Trenchard!” she
sniffed in an upper-class British accent, “You are a foul-mouthed, ill-tempered
barbarian, utterly unfit for the manners of polite society!”
“Well, I may not be fit
for polite society,” Hawke drawled, “But I know enough to turn you inside out,
old gal – you sock-dologizing old man-trap!”
The audience roared with
laughter, and Booth raised his pistol even as Parker came up behind him.
“Hey there!” he shouted,
desperate to distract the assassin. “Stop this villainy!”
Booth pulled the trigger,
and the pistol roared loudly in the confined space. There were shrieks in the
audience below, but Parker’s shout had accomplished one thing: Lincoln had
turned his head at the sound of his shout, and the bullet aimed at the back of the
President’s head tore through his right ear instead. The President
stood quickly, and his long, wiry arm shot out, grabbing Booth
by the wrist. The actor snarled in rage, and with his right hand drew a
lethal-looking Bowie knife from his belt. Lincoln grabbed that wrist with
his other hand, and the two men were caught in a deadly grapple. Parker
had his pistol out, but he could not get a clear shot as the two men swayed and
struggled back and forth. Mrs. Lincoln was screaming, and Clara Harris had
fainted dead away in Major Rathbone’s arms, temporarily preventing him from
aiding the President.
Abraham Lincoln was
enormously strong, and always had been. Years of splitting rails had left
his arms as tough as steel cables, and even in his fifties he could hold an axe
by the very end of the handle, parallel with the ground, for
a full minute at a time. Once, in a brawl as a young man, he
had picked up his opponent and flung him headfirst into the ground so hard that
the man was unconscious for two hours. Booth was two decades younger, a
superb acrobat and swordsman, but his strength was no match for that of the
enraged prairie giant he was now wrestling.
Parker decided to help the
President subdue Booth instead of shooting into the midst of them, so he grabbed
one of the actor’s legs. As he did, a powerful kick from
Booth’s opposite foot caught him in the forehead, knocking him out
cold. He crumpled to the floor unconscious.
But Booth had thrown himself
off balance by kicking so hard, and a veteran “rassler” like Lincoln knew how
to take advantage of that. The actor’s pistol
had already fallen out of his hand as they fought,
and now Lincoln shifted his grip with his right hand to the actor’s
collar. Lifting and twisting, he raised the much shorter Booth clear of
the ground and flung him out and away from the Presidential box – into the air
above the screaming crowd! Lincoln just had time to see the hate in
Booth’s eyes turning to shock, and then to fear, as his body tumbled into the
empty air. The actor threw out one hand, trying to catch the edge of the Presidential
box. Instead, his fingers wrapped around the tricolor bunting
adorning the rail, and he pulled it after him like a streamer as he
plunged downward to the stage. He struck the boards headfirst, and his
neck snapped with a sickening crunch. His arms and legs were still
twitching as the red, white, and blue bunting slowly settled over his dying
form.
The audience’s screams were
slowly displaced by a buzz of wonder and excitement. Someone had tried to
shoot the President, and Lincoln had killed the man with his bare hands!
One by one, eyes glanced back and forth from the crumpled form on the stage to
the tall man standing in the Presidential box. Lincoln raised his hand to
his ear, and it came away bloody, so he reached into his pocket and pulled out
a handkerchief, holding it to the side of his head. Intense pain shot
through his head as he put pressure on his mangled ear. He waved one hand at
the audience to show that he was all right, and all of Ford’s theater erupted
in applause. Mary Todd Lincoln, who had been standing virtually paralyzed
with fear and shock, suddenly came to herself and embraced her husband, heedless
of the hundreds who were watching. The applause redoubled until the
rafters of the theater vibrated. On the stage, Harry Hawke and Laura Keene stared
upward, their lines momentarily forgotten.
The crowd slowly fell silent, and
Lincoln stepped to the railing of the box, looking down at Booth’s body.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I
think that tonight’s performance is done.”
As I said, I have no idea when this story will be finished, only that it's flowing smoothly right now and I am enjoying the writing process. But, if you'd like to check out my other alternative history project, PRESIDENT HAMILTON is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, and anywhere else books are sold online! Check it out!
https://www.amazon.com/President-Hamilton-Novel-Alternative-History/dp/1632137100/ref=sr_1_23?dchild=1&qid=1624931942&refinements=p_27%3ALewis+Ben+Smith&s=books&sr=1-23&text=Lewis+Ben+Smith
