The Tall Target Page #3

Mr. Beaufort.

Oh, he is?

This is it.

Two killings for the price of one, huh?

There wouldn't have to be

if you'd mind your own business.

Have a smoke?

You hand off cigars to all your victims?

It gives them something

to do with their hands.

Three minutes stop. New Brunswick.

This is where we get off.

Wrong side, Mr. Kennedy.

Get your pillows!

Down toward the engine, Mr. Kennedy.

Papers!

Papers! Papers!

Get your pillows!

Papers!

Who wants something?

This is good.

Mind if I smoke this now?

I don't like to see

fine tobacco go to waste.

Go ahead.

I'm waiting for the whistle.

Aboard!

Red Flag. Washington. And points south.

All passengers, BOARD!

Who's giving you orders?

Who is it?

Talk! Who is it?

No! Noo! NO!

Did you hear that?

Come on.

Who is it?

He's in Car 27!

Hold the train, Mr. Gannon!

Who is it?

Kennedy.

You don't need a doctor.

Just a long box.

- Who did it?

- I did.

May I pull the task pail, Mr. Crowley?

Go ahead.

Hold it, Mr. Gannon.

Can I see you for a moment, please?

I'm Col. Caleb Jeffers

of the 6th Zouaves.

Here are my orders.

Orders or no orders, Colonel.

The country's not under military law.

Not yet.

The sheriff will want

to ask you some questions.

The Provost Marshal

in Baltimore can answer them.

My men and I

need to parade there tomorrow.

This is Sgt. Kennedy

of the New York police.

I'll vouch for him.

The Inaugural Express is

due in Baltimore in 10 hours.

Sgt. Kennedy and I are preceding it.

We expected trouble. But not so soon.

Well, what will I do with him?

Put him on ice until you hear

from the War Department.

Pretty fast talking, Colonel.

Pretty fast riding for me.

Pretty fancy shooting too, for anyone.

So, Sarge. You want to hit me?

That's the cabdriver's take.

The important thing is I plugged him.

Yeah, thanks.

You told me you didn't have a gun.

I didn't.

I had to borrow this

from one of my men.

What for?

For you.

Ain't much of a pistol.

One shot and you're through.

Or the other fellow is.

Bullets?

There. They may come in handy.

You know I don't know anything

about a plot against Lincoln's life.

But there certainly seems

to be one against yours.

You have to have a nightcap.

I've got work to do.

I'll have one myself. I could use it.

Hogwash, huh?

That's what Simon Stroud called it.

Do you mind if I read it too?

I don't see why not?

Everyone else has.

Two weeks ago, I was sent

to Baltimore in a routine assignment.

I didn't find our suspect.

They turned up a better one.

- See that man?

- Mmm-hmm.

His name is Fernandina.

The first time I met him was

in his barber shop.

At the Barnum Hotel.

He was giving me a shave.

He never stopped talking politics.

He said the elections were crooked.

And if that man lived

or set in the White House,

he'd split the country

and bring on a war.

Well, you don't have to go to Baltimore

to hear talk like that.

Something in the way he spoke

made me listen.

I made friends with him.

One night he took me to a secret society

he was mixed up with.

When I heard what was going on,

I joined up.

Secret password, it says here.

"Dagger on a Bible."

It reminds me of when I was a young one.

A very young one.

That's the way it struck me too

until I heard the rest of it.

They've got numbers. Hundreds.

Maybe thousands.

Southern hotheads I suppose.

Add a few cool ones from the North.

Well, it seems to me

you've got a case after all.

By the way, did you learn anything

from our departed friend

back in New Brunswick?

He admitted he had

a contact in the Car 27.

But he wasn't under oath.

Worse. He was under the wheels.

Not much to go on. But it's a start.

You play whist?

Yeah, why?

There's nothing like a two-handed

card game to attract onlookers.

Let's go back to the parlor.

These observations

will be of great importance

when I present my views to Mr. Lincoln.

And for my new book as well.

I'm writing another

Watch the aisle a moment.

Mrs. Stowe isn't the only literary lady

in New England.

But no one can say that

I'm not equally permissive.

I sure I'm very grateful for allowing me

to talk to your slave, Miss Beaufort.

After all,

I've never talked to a slave before.

We don't have them in Boston you know.

Oh, it's quite all right, Mrs. Alsop.

I'm sure the experience is as novel

for Rachel as it is for you.

Oh!

Have you lost something, Mrs. Alsop?

My my jottings. My literary jottings.

I must've missed placed them somewhere.

Pardon me.

Pardon me.

Do you mind, Mr. Ogden?

I'm sure you're sitting

on my jottings.

Oh!

No jottings.

I must have left them in my cabin.

Pardon me.

Pardon me, please.

Oh, Mrs. Alsop.

Yes.

Your jottings.

Oh, dear. I was sitting on them!

Thank you so much.

You must forgive me.

I'm such a scatter-brain.

I'm always losing my jottings.

My husband tells me

they're strewn all over Boston.

Now let me see. Where were we?

Oh, tell me, my dear.

How does it feel being beaten?

They did beat you, of course?

Yes, of course.

Rachel, don't be so absurd.

They did too, Miss Ginny.

Remember the Christmas ball

when we slid down the banister together?

You forget to tell, Mrs. Alsop.

We were ten years old.

They spanked me too.

That didn't make me hurt any less.

Now there's one question more.

If you slaves were free,

would you go back to Africa to live?

Madame!

Don't interrupt, Lance.

Mrs. Alsop is going

to put Rachel in a book.

Something along the lines

of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

She is, if she?

Oh, I don't mind, Mr. Lance.

Africa?

Oh, I don't think so.

It seems such a long ways off.

And I don't know anybody there.

I've lived in Tall Trees all my life.

Well, you'll change your mind

the day slavery is abolished.

When you know what freedom is.

I know what it is.

And now, Mrs. Alsop.

If you've pried sufficiently

into our benighted Southern affairs,

I'm sure my sister

and the maid would like to retire.

Well!

I'll see that your cabin is made up.

Wait a minute, sonny. Wait a minute.

I know you're a West Point lieutenant.

And I'm only a colonel in the militia.

But don't they teach

lieutenants to salute colonels

up there at the point?

I'm sorry, sir.

I've only had my uniform four hours.

And haven't been saluted yet.

You may as well be the first.

Congratulations on your commission,

Colonel.

Come here, sonny.

Oh, excuse me.

Well now, how about that game of whist?

I'm your man. But as I told you, son.

Cards is the invention of the devil.

It must've been invented

on a long train ride.

Well, we can't say this one

has been too dull, can we?

What with the shooting

back there in New Brunswick.

Does anyone know

who the man was who was shot?

I wish I knew myself.

Restless times.

Let us hope the country will settle down

after Mr. Lincoln is inaugurated.

I'd inaugurate him

with a stout rope

from the White House chandelier.

You sound as if you've lost a bet,

friend.

A bet?

We've lost a country, Colonel.

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