DC By the Book

Excerpt: He spurs the horse again, cursing the animal, though it isn't her fault. She's racing down Fourth to Indiana as fas as she can go. She is as scared as he, baffled, about being spurred with one boot, frightened by the smell of blood that clings to her rider. It isn't the Ape's blood, or course. The one little ball from the Derringer went to perfectly into his head to make a mess. The blood belongs to the other fellow, the one who should have been Grant.

Excerpt: He'd felt no pain until a moment ago, but he knew he'd shattered the leg as soon as he hit the stage. The exact same spot on the boards! Just where he'd nicked himself with his dagger a year and a half ago, throwing himself down with too much feeling in Friar Laurence's cell. When he'd leapt from the box -- three minutes ago? Had he covered a mile yet? One of the three between Ford's and the Navy Yard Bridge? -- he'd forgotten the slope of the stage. If he'd remembered, he could have landed clean, he was sure, even after the flag caught his spur. But no one will ever forget him. Tomorrow morning he will be the most famous man in America.

Excerpt: "'And fall upon the ground,'" he pants, spurring the horse with his good leg. "'Taking the measure of an unmade grave.'" He tries to remember the lines as tears of pain and self-pity and sheer excitement stream down his face. The horse races into Judiciary Square.

Excerpt: At the beginning of this flight, two minutes ago, he had been calm, even precise, noting each turn -- from the Public Alley into F Street, through the gate he'd arranged to be open, then across Ninth, past the Patent Building -- amazed that he'd not been pursued or shot in the back. The noise of the theater was far behind him. But as soon as he thought that no one would catch him, it seemed too good to be true, and the tears came, along with this waved of fear. The moon and the gas lamps are too bright; the city, a week after Appomattox, too nervous. Someone was bound to wonder why , at this hour, this horse is galloping through Washington. Someone is bound to thwart his path.

Excerpt: He'd felt no pain until a moment ago, but he knew he'd shattered the leg as soon as he hit the stage. The exact same spot on the boards! Just where he'd nicked himself with his dagger a year and a half ago, throwing himself down with too much feeling in Friar Laurence's cell. When he'd leapt from the box -- three minutes ago? had he covered a mile yet? one of the three between Ford's and the Navy Yard Bridge? -- he'd forgotten the slope of the stage. If he'd remembered, he could have landed clean, he was sure, even after the flag caught his spur. But no one will ever forget him. Tomorrow morning he will be the most famous man in America.