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collision knocked Booth down; but the actor, having absorbed only a small part
of Jerry's momentum, and mentally braced for violent interference at any
moment, recovered from the collision while Jerry still sprawled at the end of
the little vestibule.
Booth picked up a wooden bar that had been lying inconspicuously on the dark
floor. Not to use as a weapon; instead Booth jammed the piece of wood into
place behind the white door, which he had finally managed to get completely
closed. A notch to hold the bar had already been cut into the plaster of the
wall.
Now there could be no further interference from outside the
Presidential box; not until it was too late.
And Booth had no need of any wooden bar to fight with; a long knife appeared
in his left hand as he faced Jerry; there was already a small pistol in his
right. In the gaze he turned on Jerry was the bitter contempt of a man
terribly betrayed.
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Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact
"No one shall stop me now," the actor declared. His soft voice, for once out
of control turned harsh and broke on the last word.
Jerry was already sickeningly conscious of total failure as he regained his
feet. Already someone was knocking on the blockaded door leading to the
auditorium. The voices of the people on stage, in
Jerry's ears restored to normal pitch and speed, were going on, the speakers
still oblivious that the hinges of history were threatening to come loose
twelve feet above them.
A great roar of laughter went up from the audience, at the words of the
character Asa Trenchard, now alone on stage. Booth's derringer was still
unfired, the President still breathed. History was already running a few
seconds late.
But maybe all was not yet totally lost.
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Jerry faced Booth. "I don't want " Jerry was beginning, when suddenly the door
immediately on Booth's left, leading into the
Presidential box, swung open. The face of Major Rathbone appeared there,
displaying, even above civilian clothes, the keen look of command.
"What is going on " the Major began; then his eyes widened as he saw the knife
in Booth's hand. The look of command vanished.
Rathbone's lungs filled. "Help!" he bellowed. "Assassins!"
Booth, evidently determined to save the single bullet in his derringer for
Lincoln, at once plunged his knife into Rathbone's chest; the wounded man fell
back.
Now Jerry was moving forward, Pilgrim's timepiece once more gripped in his
left hand, the fingers of his right hand reaching for
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Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact the stem. He had to get within three meters.
Because within a very few seconds the fatal shot
Booth, inevitably convinced that Jerry meant to stop him, turned on
Jerry with the knife, now held in his right hand. Even as Jerry managed to
grip the wrist of the hand that drove that weapon toward him, he knew his own
damaged left wrist was not going to be able to take the strain.
In terror of his life now, all other purposes forgotten, Jerry screamed for
help. Then he could no longer hold back the arm that held the knife. He saw
and felt it come plunging into his chest, cold paralyzing steel that brought
the certainty of death&
He fell. Through a thickening haze of red and gray, Jerry saw Booth re-open
the door into the box. Through a cottony fog, Jerry heard the assassin's
pistol fire.
"Thus ever to tyrants!" Someone shouted in the distance. The words were
followed by a sound as of cloth ripping, and then a crashing fall. Jerry
realized that Booth, almost on schedule, had gone over the railing onto the
stage.
"The President has been shot!" Someone was crying out the words.
Jerry could do nothing but sit slumped against the wall. People were trying to
break in through the blocked door. There was an uproar of pounding and
shouting all around him, but it seemed to have less and less to do with him,
with each beat of his failing heart. He looked down at the watch he had been
forced to drop. Still held to him by its chain, it lay on his bloodied
waistcoat. He tried to reach for the stem of the device, but could not move
his hands. He felt
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