Free The Titans by John Jakes

his pocket. The sentry, rifled musket raised, moved down the hall to bar the The Titans75 favor-seekers who had risen from their benches at the sight of the Chief Executive. "You know, Mr. Kent, once in a while I feel exactly like a fellow I knew back in Springfield. The man committed a public indecency and was promptly covered with tar and chicken feathers and escorted out of town riding on a rail. Someone asked him how it felt." The pushy throng in the hallway quieted. "Well, the miscreant said-was Lincoln's right thumb hooked under his coat and caught his suspender. His eyes twinkled as he lapsed into an exaggerated rural dialect: "To be honest, fellers, if it wasn't for the honor involved, I'd jist as soon walk." Jephtha smiled, then thanked the President for granting him more time than originally allotted. Nicolay tapped a nail against the case of his watch. Slowly, like a curtain falling, a tired expression came across Lincoln's face. He turned to re-enter the office, ignoring a man down the hall who held up his hand and exclaimed, "Mr. President, if I could just speak to you for a moment-was Lincoln scuffed his shoes on the carpet. His shoulders slumped. Nicolay followed him inside. The rosewood door closed. The man who'd raised his hand swore. Jephtha pushed through the fetid petitioners and headed down the staircase. On the ground floor he saw the German family clustered around draperies at one of the windows. With a guilty look, the wife returned a small pair of scissors to her reticule-and then something else. Jephtha noticed a square had been snipped from one of the drapes. He shook his head as he walked to the doors. Souvenir-stealing at the mansion was nothing new. But he was deeply concerned about the lack of security in the building. Lincoln was passionately hated by a great many people. Those around the President should exercise 768An Oath Registered in Heaven" more caution-insist on more guards-even if the President refused to do so. Jephtha knew Lincoln had a fatalistic view about his own death. He'd been exposed to repeated threats on his life and dismissed them, feeling his time had not yet come. Jephtha recalled reading a piece in MedilTs Chicago Daily Tribune written out of Springfield the morning after the election. Lincoln had spoken of a puzzling dream the preceding night. A dream or, his detractors would claim, hallucination; he was known to fall into black, almost suicidal moods. The story said that as Lincoln started to go to sleep, he glanced in a mirror and saw himself lying full length on a sofa covered with haircloth. His image had one body, but two faces. When he rose, the vision disappeared. When he lay down a second time, twin faces again shimmered in the glass. One face was chalk-white. Lincoln's wife Mary, the small, ambitious woman whom many said vexed her husband almost beyond endurance, had circulated the story next day and given it an eerie twist. She maintained the two faces meant her husband would be elected to a second term. The pallor of one face meant he would never complete it. Thinking of the story as he went down the mansion's outer steps, Jepntha shivered. Enemies of the President were always circulating tales about his wife's mental instability. Whether Mrs. Lincoln had a morbid imagination was beside the point. Lincoln was vulnerable in the too-public presidential residence. Washington was no longer merely a rough-hewn, basically Southern city that came to life for a few months every year when Congress sat. It was the capital of a nation at war with itself. In war, men killed other men- And not always on the battlefield. Jephtha headed toward the brick State Department building. He intended to drop in on one of his contacts The Titans77 to learn whether Lincoln's muzzling of all government officials was a reality. As he approached the building, a party of men emerged, headed for the White House. In the center of the group, with those on either side leaning close to catch his