At His Hands by Glen Held

At His Hands by Glen Held

Stella Marie bounced up and down in her seat as I drove the two-horse buggy toward home. “Mr. Boyd is so very, very handsome, Ned!” she said, her mood ecstatic as it had been ever since the new teacher arrived last week. She smiled and waved at the people we passed and they returned her greeting in kind. For my part, I just stared down at the dirt road not wanting to see their looks change when they turned their attention my way.

Whereas little Stella Marie and her family were much loved and admired I was, at most, tolerated, and, at least, wished dead. For that, I didn’t blame them: They weren’t the only ones with that wish.

“Don’t you think Mr. Boyd is just wonderful?” Stella Marie went on. “I know it’s not nice, Ned, but I hope grumpy old Miss Nelson, never comes back.”

Although it took a while, I eventually croaked out the answer to her first statement. “Wonderful.”

All the way out of town, Stella Marie rambled on about the teacher. I grunted and nodded, not really listening until she said my name. “Ned, look near that tree! There’s a man there waving at you.”

I looked to see a brutish looking man gesturing at me with one hand while holding a small card with the other. My every intention was to pass him by until Stella Marie said, “Do stop and see what he wants.” Knowing this could not possibly go well, but having no other choice, I obeyed, bringing the buggy to a halt and handing her the reins.

“Wait here,” I growled, glaring at her from underneath the oversized hat tied around my head. She nodded with a pleasant look. I sighed and got down from the wagon, my thick woolen coat making my slow movements even slower.

I shambled over to the stranger and he extended what looked to be a calling card, holding the blank side of it toward me. “Compliments of a friend,” he said and dropped the card to the ground. With much effort, I bent over and picked it up. By the time I returned to an upright position, he was gone.

Puzzled, I looked to the card.

There were three letters on it; three letters that caused my mind to spin: J.W.B.

No, it couldn’t be him!

“Ned, are you okay?” Stella Marie called from the buggy. Although I wasn’t, I nodded that I was. “Good, then let’s get home to St. Catherine. I want to tell daddy all about what Mr. Boyd said today.”

I shoved the card in my pocket and made my way back onto the buggy. The rest of the trip to St. Catherine, her family’s estate, was filled with Stella Marie laughing, singing and talking about Mr. Boyd; her infatuation with the teacher keeping her from both asking me questions about what had just happened and seeing my consternation.

And all the while we went, I dreaded what I was going to tell Dr. Sam.

Stella Marie was more excited than ever as we went past the tobacco barn and arrived at the big house. Before I could descend from the buggy, she had already raced to the front door where Dr. Sam waited with arms open wide. He bowed his tall frame and swooped up his little girl, both laughing as he twirled her around.

“Oh, Daddy,” Stella Marie, in between giggles, said as her father put her down, “Mr. Boyd said I was the smartest child in the whole class!”

“That’s no surprise to me,” Dr. Sam said, smiling at her. “I always knew …” His smile faded as he saw me lingering at the bottom of the steps. “Run along and get ready for dinner, Stella Marie.”

“All right, but don’t be long.” Stella Marie’s eyes twinkled as she spoke. “I want to tell you more about Mr. Boyd.”

After the girl had gone, Dr. Sam came down to me. Try as I might, I couldn’t meet his penetrating gaze. “You’re about to tell me something I’d rather not hear, Ned Spangler,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Haven’t I had enough bad news in this lifetime for a hundred men?”

I looked up from under my hat to finally lock eyes with the man who had saved me in life and damned me in death. I took no pleasure in handing him the card I knew would shatter his world.

“No!” Dr. Sam’s eyebrows knit together as he read the letters over and over again. “It’s not true!” A moment later, he ripped the card into pieces then bounded into the house, slamming the door behind him.

After waiting for a few minutes, foolishly thinking he might return, I shuffled to the back of the house and into the kitchen where the two servants immediately backed away. As I shuffled past them to the double doors leading to the dining room, they crossed themselves. This had happened every day for the five years I’d been this way.

Did they think I liked what I had become?

Did they think this was my choice?

Trying hard not to let thoughts I couldn’t act on consume me, I stood at the window behind Dr. Sam’s chair; my dinner position these last five years. The rest of the family was already there, sitting and talking to one another. Stella Marie was babbling to older and younger siblings alike about how brilliant Mr. Boyd thought she was. All jumped to silent attention as Dr. Sam entered from the hallway.

Dr. Sam, usually full of laughter and high spirits, was now as morose as I had ever seen; and the doctor and I had been through truly troubling times. Not looking at anyone, he dropped into his chair and closed his eyes. At a nod from Miss Frankie, his wife, the rest of the family sat. So bad was his humor, that no-one, not even Stella Marie, dared speak.

After dinner, Miss Frankie ushered the children out of the room. For the next ten minutes, she pleaded and begged him to say what was going on. Although my experience with Dr. Sam told me how much he cared for her, he remained silent. In tears, she eventually gave up and left.

When Miss Frankie had gone and the servants had cleared the table, Dr. Sam suddenly whirled on me, his chair crashing to the floor. If my reflexes had been normal, I would have jumped in surprise. As it was, I simply stood there.

“The devil himself took that bastard fifteen years ago and, for what he did, he’ll burn in hell for eternity!” Dr. Sam, red-faced, snapped at me. “He took six years of our lives and you have the nerve to bring his name back into this house? Damn his memory and damn you, Ned Spangler!”

“I…”

“Quiet!” he roared, and once more my slow reflexes betrayed me. I had not so much as blinked before Dr. Sam pulled forth the glistening silver cross he wore around his neck and held it before my eyes. The rays of the setting sun, caused it to sparkle and shine. Try as I might to look away, its shiny nature took hold of my attention and did not let go. Like it had five years earlier, my body grew warm and then numb as though it were not my own.

“Please…” I begged, but Dr. Sam was not listening.

“You will never, ever say his name again or talk about him.” Dr. Sam’s words came soft and evenly, but there was no denying the authority behind them. “Do you understand me?”

Although I wanted with all my heart and soul to resist, I couldn’t. “Yes.”

Then he put the cross back inside his shirt and sat down with a sigh. “Get out of my sight before I forget we once were friends.”

“Friends?” I said and looked down at my heavily clothed body.

He too looked at me, all of me, then his eyes began to tear and he looked away. “Out,” he whispered. With the warm feeling lessening in me, but still under his spell, I trundled through the kitchen and outside. I shambled to the tobacco barn, the stars above shining bright. As I regarded them, I thought about what I had seen today.

And I remembered.

A shot, then screaming and the sound of people running. A man I immediately recognized limped toward where I stood in the backstage of the theatre.

“Are you all right, sir?” I asked. “What’s happened?”

Out of breath and in obvious pain, he smiled grimly. “The president’s been shot.”

My breath caught. “The President?”

His eyes narrowed for a second. “Yes, him,” he said quickly. “Is my horse ready like I earlier asked?”

I shook my head. “I attended to it.”

He smiled grimly. “You’re a good man, Neddie Spangler.”

“But where are you going?” I asked, confused as to what he was telling me. Voices were loud behind us.

He took me by the shoulder, his dark, liquid eyes boring into my very soul. “No-one should follow me,” he whispered. “Long live the south.”

And then he was gone, limping out the back door toward his mare. A second later, Jake Rittersback, my co- worker, was upon me. “There goes Booth! We have to–”

As if in a trance, I slapped Jake in the face, sending him to the ground. I heard myself say, “Don’t tell which way he went.”

And then, lord help my soul, I stood in front of the door, barring anyone from getting out…

And in further prosecution of the unlawful and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and of the murderous and traitorous intent of said conspiracy, the said Edward ‘Ned’ Spangler, on said 14th day of April, A. D. 1865 is found guilty of aiding and abetting John Wilkes Booth in making his escape after the said Abraham Lincoln had been murdered…

“Come on, Ned!” a voice shouted, snapping me out of my reverie. It was daytime, many hours passed since the memories arrived. I blinked twice; as much to clear my head as to clear the hated visions that still plagued me. When it did, I saw Stella Marie sitting in the buggy and waving to me. I must have been standing in front of the barn all night. “Hurry!”

I lurched forward, limbs stiffer than ever but still under my command, and shuffled to the wagon. “Don’t let her out of your sight,” a voice behind me said. I turned to find Dr. Sam behind me. “She means the world to me, Ned.”

“Release me,” I said, the words coming out of me before I could even think. They burned my throat, but I didn’t care. “Let me go… please.”

“Not yet,” he said, and was gone before I could say anything else. With a sigh, I went to the waiting buggy, taking the reins from a servant as I struggled to get on board.

“Ned Spangler, I do hope we are not going to be late for school,” Stella Marie said, arms folded across her chest.

“Good morning to you too,” I managed as we headed toward town.

Stella Marie looked at me and smiled. “I believe you just made a joke,” she said and laughed melodically, having completely forgotten she was ever angry.

As we rode, unbidden thoughts of the past took over. After his return to St. Catherine’s, Dr. Sam endeavored to pick up his life where it had left off. He worked hard to regain his place in the community and rebuild both his practice and family: To get out from under the specter of Lincoln and Booth. While Dr. Sam accomplished the initial two aspects surprisingly quickly, his first child born after our six years in that prison hell mysteriously died six months later. Dr. Sam thought this a punishment from God, but Miss Frankie persevered in her claims otherwise. Shortly thereafter, Stella Marie was born and life and beauty was restored to…

“Ned Spangler, you haven’t listened to a word I’ve been saying the whole trip,” Stella Marie admonished as we pulled up to the one-story wooden schoolhouse.

“No,” I slowly admitted.

She smiled. “That’s okay,” she said then jumped off the wagon and, quick like lightning, raced into the school.

Usually, while I waited for Stella Marie, I either did chores around town or drove back to St. Catherine’s. Since Dr. Sam had told me to watch her, today I did neither. I parked the buggy, tended to the horses, then stood under the shade of a nearby tree at a vantage point where I could see the school’s front and back doors.

The day went rather slowly as I stood and watched and waited. The only time I moved was with the sun in order to remain in shadow. Other than that, my day was boring except when Stella Marie went out during recess and I observed her intently fearful of danger from any avenue. I shouldn’t have worried though as her classmates seemed to hold her in the same high regard her family did. Finally, school was over and Stella Marie came running to me.

“Ned, I have exciting news,” she said, all out of breath then took a second to compose herself. “Mr. Boyd wants to see you!”

“Me?”

She shook her head up and down. “Yes, right now!” she exclaimed, then took my hand and led me into the schoolhouse. All the while I wondered what this was all about.

The school house was one giant room with row upon row of desks. A chalkboard was at the front of the class next to an open door; presumably a closet.

“I’ll be right out, Mr. Spangler,” a muffled voice called from that unseen area. “Stella Marie can you help me for a moment, please?”

“That’s Mr. Boyd,” Stella Marie giggled, then let go and ran to her teacher.

I heard some talking going on from the closet, then laughter and finally nothing at all. Before I could move to investigate, a figure came out. My eyes grew wide and I staggered backwards a few steps as I saw who it was. Although the trademark goatee was gone and the hair was shades lighter, I had no doubt as to the school teacher’s true identity.

Yet how could this be? The teacher was about thirty-five years old while the man I thought he was would have been over fifty; if he had lived.

“I’m Mr. Boyd.” Although a smile played at the corners of his mouth, his dark eyes bore into me with striking intensity. I had known this stare before.

“No.” I backed into a wall as he came toward me with outstretched hand.

“Stella Marie is a lovely girl.” He was now just a foot away, taking my hand in his own and drawing me closer. “I know she has taken to me. Please tell her father how much I have taken to her.”

My words came quickly in the face of this menace. “What do you want?”

He released me then threw back his head and laughed. “Why would you think I wanted anything?”

I looked him over, knowing I had to be right, but how could he have kept so young? “I know what you are,” I said, my voice a harsh whisper.

He tilted his head to regard me. “No, you haven’t a clue as to what I am,” he said. “But the better question is what manner of creature have you become, Ned Spangler?”

I had no answer to that. How could I tell anyone of my death and how Dr. Sam had worked a miracle out in the swamps beyond his plantation… and what that miracle had cost in terms of my very soul.

“Sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil.” His eyes shone brightly. “But we’re not here to talk of Heaven and Hell. We’re here to talk of some place in-between.”

It was then I realized I had neither seen nor heard Stella Marie since she had gone into the closet. As quick as I could, I pushed past the teacher and shambled to the closet. Not only was it empty, but there was an open passageway leading outside.

And Stella Marie was nowhere to be found.

“I still have, to turn a phrase, confederates,” Mr. Boyd said from behind me, then grabbed my coat and propelled me into the closet and away from any prying eyes. I was slammed against the wall, my hat falling from my head. Immediately, I felt what little light there was burning my skin. “Here’s what you’re going to do, you hideous mockery of a man. Go back home to your precious Dr. Sam and tell him I’ve come for what is rightfully mine. He’s to meet me in the swamp at midnight or he will never see Stella Marie again… at least not alive.”

He let me go then pulled out another calling card which he shoved into my hand. Written on back were the words ‘Midnight’ and ‘You know where’.

“In case you are not able to articulate my wishes properly,” Booth sneered. “Now get out of my sight. You disgust me.”

But I wasn’t going anywhere. My hardened fist struck Booth in the chest, sending him staggering backwards and out of the closet. I advanced and now it was my turn to grab him by his coat. “Where is Stella Marie?” I managed to grunt. “Where is she?”

With a tremendous shrug, the monster pushed me away. I thought he would hit me back, but, instead, he straightened his coat and smiled. “Stella Marie will be fine as long as my wishes are exceeded to. After all, John Wilkes Booth was always as loyal to his admirers as they were to him. Adieu, Mr. Spangler: Pray that we do not meet again.”

Then Booth went into the closet, closing the door behind him. I staggered outside, but the noise of a horse galloping away told me I would not catch him. As best I could, I made inquiries as to Mr. Boyd’s residence. Although normally shunned, my obvious desperation got me answers. In short time, I discovered the boarding house the false teacher was staying at. Amidst much protest, I went into it to discover the actor and his belongings were no longer there.

As fast as possible, I rode to St. Catherine’s. The only man who could help now was Stella Marie’s father, Dr. Samuel Mudd; the man who set the leg Booth broke when he leapt to the stage in Ford’s Theater then was mistakenly thought to have hid the actor. Dr. Mudd, the man who, with me, had been sentenced to prison, then released after six years for saving half the prisoners and guards from yellow fever.

He was also the man who turned me into what I was today.

“Where is my daughter?” Dr. Sam yelled as I pulled up to the house. From the upstairs window he must have seen my arrival and raced down to accost me.

“She …” My mouth began to burn; the words would not come no matter how hard I tried to force them.

“You will never, ever say his name again or talk about him.”

Eyes wide with panic, Dr. Sam took me by the shoulders. “Where is Stella Marie?” he repeated, but I could say nothing. No matter how hard I tried to change the words around, I could not come out with them as they were still about him.

So I pointed back towards town and mouthed the word ‘school’ hoping Dr. Sam would see my predicament. But he didn’t. Instead of questioning me further, he pushed me aside and ran to the barn.

“Wait,” I croaked, but the word was too low and too late. That’s when I remembered the card. I pulled it out and held it high, but he had already ridden past me, a rifle slung across his back. I dropped the card to the ground.

As I watched him go, no emotion ran through me. Five years I had lived this way. Five years I had done his bidding and served his family. He should have let me die five years ago, but with the same mindset that caused him to set Booth’s leg, the physician had done everything in his power to cause me to live.

And, oh, how I wanted to die.

With every fiber of my being, I yearned for death’s embrace and the end to my pain and…

“What’s happened?” a voice asked and I turned to see Ms. Frankie, her face white. “Where has Dr. Sam gone? Where is Stella Marie?” She looked at me with pleading, tear-filled eyes. Her warm hand grasped my cold one, but it did not thaw me. “Ned, if you know what’s going on, I beg you, help them!”

I looked at her, feeling nothing. “He made me into…this.” I said slowly, but, in her pain and grief, she was not listening.

“Ned, find my poor husband and darling daughter,” she cried and my body started to grow warm even without the sight of the silver crucifix. Unknowingly, Ms. Frankie had done the only thing she could have to help her family: She had ordered me to find them.

Reluctantly, I turned and went back to the barn. It was starting to get dark out; midnight less than five hours off. In the barn, I went to the box where I kept the few possessions dear to me. Wrapped up in the corner was the only thing I’d been smart enough to hide before I was arrested in the Lincoln conspiracy: It was my gun.

Putting the weapon in my coat pocket, I left the tobacco barn and began the long walk to where I knew Booth was. I trudged to the end of St. Catherine then out to the swamps. Once before I had been here and my mind wandered back to that day; the first day of my new existence.

Although I couldn’t move or see, I could still hear, smell and think. I knew I was stretched out in the back of a wagon and being driven out to the swamps beyond St. Catherine’s. “When you saved my life at prison, Ned, I promised to repay you. Although it means breaking my vow never to do this again, I will help you.” I heard Dr. Mudd’s voice say. “Alas, we’ve waited too long for full recovery. Even my serum and the swamps natural healing powers can’t bring you back to true living.

“We need something more.”

He stopped talking and we traveled further. Eventually, I heard sounds in the distance which, as we got closer, I realized were music and rowdy singing. That stopped as we halted. I heard a number of voices whisper a word that sounded like ‘strega’ and then an old, crackling voice.

“Again, Mudd?” It whispered of ages long past.

“I have need of your services,” Dr. Sam said, and there was derisive laughter among those assembled there.

“My price does not come cheap,” she said, and all fell silent. “But you found that out for yourself, didn’t you, Mudd? Or at least your son found that out.”

“I had to do it,” Dr. Sam whispered. “Booth had lent me money. If the authorities found him on my property, no one would have believed me innocent of Lincoln’s killing.”

“Which they didn’t anyway.” She sighed. “You should have just let him die, killed him if you had to, then hid the body. Imagine, trading your flesh and blood so that murderer could be healed. Don’t you know family comes first, Mudd?”

“I never thought you would really take him. He was only a baby.” Dr. Sam’s voice cracked and I could hear the anger and sorrow in his voice. I never knew this was why his son had died.

“A deal is a deal,” she said. “And where did it get you? Booth alive and well while you rotted in jail for six years. I hear you almost died in there.”

“Yes,” Dr. Sam said, a terrible weariness to his tone. “This is why I’m here today. This is the man who saved my life in prison; this is the man who allowed you to collect your fee.”

There was silence, broken by the sound of slow footsteps coming closer. I soon heard labored breathing from above me. Suddenly, my eyelids were drawn back and I found myself face to face with the oldest woman I had ever seen. She stared at me intently for a moment and I felt as if she was piercing into my very soul.

“I can repair him, but not all the way,” she said. “He’ll be alive although not fully human.”

“And your terms this time?” Dr. Sam asked.

“None,” she answered, and her mouth opened up in a gold tooth filled smile. “This I do for myself. He will both fulfill a prophecy of mine long left unfulfilled and he will avenge me.”

“I don’t understand,” Dr. Sam said.

“You don’t have to.” Then she began muttering in a language I was not familiar with. After that, hard faces appeared above me and I felt my body moving as I was lifted upward and carried toward a brightly covered wagon. I was brought inside and laid down on a table. The old woman’s face returned, a leer spread over it.

“This is going to hurt, Ned Spangler,” she said. “I promise you, this is going to hurt a lot.”

Then she got to work and made good on her promise.

The light of the full moon glowing brightly, I followed the trail to where I knew Booth would have brought Stella Marie. I traversed through the bogs until… The gypsy camp lay in ruins, the once brightly colored wagon now blackened and barely recognizable. Slower than usual, I walked forward, something crunching under my feet in the wet ground. Looking down, I found myself stepping on hundreds of bones; some burnt, some still flesh covered, some gleaming white. What drew my attention was a skull hanging from a string on the side of the wagon. The gold teeth told me who it was.

A grinning Booth came out from behind the wagon. “It wasn’t easy to kill her,” he said. “She knew a tremendous number of tricks, but, in the end, she gave herself up to protect her children. That was foolish, as you can see from what’s left of them.”

“Murderer,” I hissed.

Booth shrugged. “True,” he said, then his smile vanished. “Where is Mudd?”

“You want to kill him? After all he did for you?” My throat went raw with the effort.

Booth laughed without humor. “It is precisely because of what he did that I have to kill him. No one must know I still live.”

‘Then you will kill me too?” I asked, suddenly hopeful, but then my orders betrayed my thoughts and I brought out my gun and leveled it at him. The villain did not shrink away. To my surprise, he opened his arms wide. Without hesitation, I fired; the roar of the pistol echoing through the swamps and sending creatures of all kind into flight. Booth staggered back, but did not fall even though the ball struck him squarely in the chest.

“How do you kill that which is no longer alive?” he said and two of his confederates, including the burly one who had given me the card, came from behind the burnt-out wagon. They knocked my gun away and grabbed me in steely grips.

“Kill me,” I whispered, but Booth wasn’t listening. The actor had grabbed the skull of the gypsy and was stroking it.

“When I was little more than a boy, I met her in a carnival, Ned. She read my palm,” he said, then changed his voice to be like I remembered hers. He worked the jaw of the skull up and down in time with his words. “You’ve a bad hand, Booth; the lines all cris-cras! It’s full enough of sorrow. Full of trouble – not one friend – you’ll make a bad end … blah, blah, blah.”

Booth heaved the skull far out into the swamp where it disappeared from sight. “Who has the last laugh, witch woman?” he called out. “Who has met a ‘bad end’?”

I stood and waited while he and his men laughed. The report of a gun ended the laughter and the man to my left slumped to the ground. A second later, another gunshot caused the second henchman to also fall at my feet. Booth’s face grew furious, but then he smiled as he glanced over my shoulder. I turned and saw Dr. Sam.

“Ms. Frankie found the card Spangler discarded and raced to find me. I knew what it meant and hurried here.” Taut faced, Dr. Mudd dropped the pistol he was carrying and pulled forth the shotgun strung across his back. “It’s time to rectify the mistake I made years ago.”

“Oh, please my dear doctor,” Booth said, still smiling. “You know you can’t kill me with that.”

“You’re right,” Dr. Sam said, “but there are things worse than death, especially to someone like you. You see, Booth, since Ned gave me your first card, I’ve been ready for you. This gun is filled with buckshot dipped in acid. While a wound from it may not kill you, it will certainly disfigure that handsome face of yours. You’ll live forever, but as a grotesque mockery of a human being. I think that is a fitting punishment, don’t you?” Dr. Sam raised the rifle toward Booth’s head.

Although his bottom lip twitched slightly, Booth did not back down. “Shoot me and you’ll never see Stella Marie alive again.”

Dr. Sam did not lower the rifle. “If you don’t tell me where my daughter is I will shoot you, reload, then shoot again until you are nothing more than a quivering mass. Where is my daughter?” he roared. Booth did not answer, but he didn’t have to. From out in the swamp, we heard an unmistakable voice.

“Daddy,” Stella Marie cried, “I’m over here!”

As he turned toward the voice, Dr. Sam reflexively lowered the gun. Booth took that instant to run into the swamp and out of sight. Moments later we heard Stella Marie screams fading off into the distance. Without a word to me, Dr. Sam raced after them in the direction we had all come from: St. Catherine’s.

And… I did not feel the urge to follow them. Ms. Frankie had told me to find them and that was precisely what I had done. Now they could all…

“Ned!” Stella Marie’s distant voice cried. “Help!”

Hearing her voice and her words, a feeling, different than any I had known before, raced through me and I had no choice as to what my next actions would be. Whether this was because of the curse I was under or the fear in the voice of the child I had known from birth made no difference. In the midst of feeling bad for myself, I had forgotten what really mattered.

Stella Marie: the only one who had treated me for what I was, not what I had become.

I followed as fast I could, all the while praying I might be in time to save her. After what seemed an eternity, I came around the front of St. Catherine. There, by light of a small kerosene lantern, I saw Dr. Sam prone on the ground, his head bleeding from a wound over has eye. Curiously, Booth stood ten feet in front of him, hands held high in surrender. Following the villain’s gaze, I found the reason why. On the outskirts of the light, Ms. Frankie stood protectively over her husband. Dr. Sam’s rifle was in her grasp and trained on the actor.

“Put the gun down, Miss Frankie.” Booth’s words were smooth, almost hypnotic in tone.

“How do you know my…” Ms. Frankie’s eyes went wide, and her mouth fell open. “I don’t believe it. You’re dead!”

“Yet here I am,” he answered, a slight smile lighting up his face.

Ms. Frankie glared at the other. “You took six years of his life!” she yelled, the gun shaking slightly. “Six years I waited while he was in jail for having the compassion to help a man that he surely should have let die!”

“Now, Ms. Frankie, is that any way for a church going woman to talk?” Booth said and began to move closer to her. “For your information, your beloved husband is not as innocent as you think. He and I met before the assassination; twice as a matter of fact.”

“What?” she said, the gun quavering even more.

“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” Booth went on. “Well, I guess he was trying to keep you from embarrassment. You see, with the end of slavery, the good doctor could no longer afford the upkeep on your plantation and was about to lose St. Catharine. He needed money, lots of it, to keep his beloved in the style to which she was accustomed. Unfortunately, times were tough for all and he couldn’t find anyone to lend him what was needed. Thankfully, someone heard of his plight and stepped up to help.

“That someone was me.”

Ms. Frankie looked down on Dr. Sam and then to Booth. “I don’t believe you! Our plantation and his practice are prosperous!”

“They are now,” Booth continued in his strong, clear voice. “But enough of that. You know what I say is true even if you don’t want to believe it. All I want is what is mine plus interest of course. Utilizing that money, and those from others like the dear doctor, I’ll soon be able to start my plan to restore the South to its former glory. Isn’t that something you want, Ms. Frankie? A way back to a time when god was in his heaven, and all was right in the world?”

As he spoke, he moved toward Miss Frankie. Staying in the shadows, I too moved hoping to catch him unawares before he got to her. “And I am ready to begin my plan to restore the South to its former glory. Give me my money and I will give you Stella Marie. It’s that simple.”

“How do I know you’ll let her go?” Miss Frankie asked.

Booth smiled again, his dark eyes dancing in the lantern light. “You don’t,” he said, then lunged forward to grab the end of the rifle. But I was already moving, coming out of the shadows to squeeze Miss Frankie’s hand. The rifle bucked and roared, the explosion almost deafening me. Booth grabbed his face, his skin hissing and crackling as the acid laced shot ate into it. When he pulled his hands away, I gasped at the mess his flesh had become.

“Stella Marie dies!” Booth hissed through torn and bloody lips. Then he turned and ran into the tobacco barn.

“What have I done?” Sobbing, Miss Frankie let the rifle slip then dropped to her knees next to Dr. Sam who was slowly opening his eyes. I wish I could have helped them, but there was no time. Bending down, I picked up the lantern and headed for the barn. One way or another, this would end now.

Holding the lantern out before me, I entered the giant barn filled with tobacco crop. I walked inside, dimming the light. That meant I could only see a few feet in front of me. It also meant I wasn’t as big a target as I otherwise would have been.

“Stella Marie, where are you?” I heard Booth’s now lisping voice whisper. He wasn’t too far in the distance, but his voice showed he was moving away from me. “Stella Marie, it’s Mr. Boyd.”

My spirits rose as I realized Stella Marie must have escaped him and was hiding. But where? As my mind asked the question, something hit my hat from up above. I looked up to see a very dirty Stella Marie looking down at me from twenty feet up in the loft. The little girl waved and I waved back.

“Help me, Ned,” she whispered.

“I will,” I promised.

The smiling look on Stella Marie’s face, gave me the strength to carry on. I took two steps toward the ladder leading up to her, then saw her expression change to one of fear. Before I could turn, I was hit from behind, the lantern flying from my grasp to hit a bundle of tobacco. Immediately, it went up in smoke and flames.

“You and the Mudd whelp die today, Spangler,” Booth said, his face even more gruesome as the fire light danced upon it.

As I struggled to right myself, Booth hit me in the chest and I fell into the inferno. Quickly, I crawled out of the flames, but not before my hat and coat caught fire. I took them off and immediately my skin began to burn, not from the heat, but from the light.

Disregarding the pain, I looked around for Booth and found him climbing the ladder to the loft. Poor Stella Marie screamed and shrank into a corner, getting as far away as possible from the madman. Hurriedly, I went to the ladder and shook it. Caught off guard by my action, Booth tumbled off. Always the athletic showman, Booth regained his balance in mid-fall landing neatly a few yards away. He took a step toward me, then grimaced and grabbed his ankle; the same one Dr. Sam had set years ago.

“Stella Marie!” a voice roared as the fire continued to feed. Dr. Sam had come into the barn, his head covered in blood, his face worn and old. “Ned, where is she?”

As I pointed up, Booth once more capitalized on our attention being diverted elsewhere. He knocked me over with a blow to the back, then turned on Dr. Sam. Whatever his intentions were, he never fulfilled them as I grabbed his injured ankle and squeezed for everything I was worth. Booth let out a terrible scream and fell to the ground, twisting and turning, but I held tight. He then set upon me, savagely attacking my exposed face and body with everything he had.

But no matter how much he hurt me, I would not let go.

“Save Stella Marie,” I managed to call to Dr. Sam.

Dr. Sam nodded and quickly righted the ladder then climbed into the loft which had luckily not yet caught fire. Stella Marie hugged her father, then the pair began to climb down. As they did, Booth redoubled his effort to escape, but that just made me squeeze him all the harder. With the fire growing in intensity, Booth rained blow after blow down on me. I was in utter agony, but I wasn’t letting go.

Through slit eyes, I saw Dr. Sam and Stella Marie had made it out of the loft. Dr. Sam came to help me, kicking Booth savagely in the head. The actor groaned and his body went limp, giving me time to get to my feet.

“Well done, Ned, thank you for saving…” A portion of the ceiling fell around us and Stella Marie screamed. But she wasn’t screaming at the fire.

Bloody, burnt and maddened with pain, Booth had gotten to his feet.

“Die!” he roared and lurched toward Dr. Sam and Stella Marie, but I stood in Booth’s way and grabbed him tight, the two of us locked in mortal combat.

“Out!” I snarled at Dr. Sam.

“No, I…” Dr. Sam said, then another bit of ceiling fell near us, the flames rising in intensity. That made up his mind. “God have mercy on your soul, Ned Spangler.”

“Goodbye, Ned,” Stella Marie called to me as Dr. Sam picked her up and raced through the fire toward the way out. “I won’t forget you.”

“I cannot die, Spangler!” Booth roared. “And you cannot hold me forever!”

But no matter how much he kicked and fought, no matter how much the flame seared and burned us, I held tight. And even as our flesh melted and our skin mingled in a jumbled mass, I knew that, if I had to hold him forever I would.

Nothing would keep me from this task.

“No,” Booth cried weakly, realizing that I would hold him till the end of time. “No!”

“Yes,” I managed to say as the fire burnt us down to our very bones.

And as my consciousness faded, Booth’s words from after he had shot Lincoln came to my mind. How appropriate they now were.

‘Sic semper tyrannis,’ my thoughts called to him. ‘Thus always to tyrants.’ 

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Glen Held 2025