Miss Katie's Rosewood (3 page)

At thirteen, Robert was old enough to admire his father for his courage. Several days later when the hubbub within the congregation was reaching its height, he announced his intention to follow his father's footsteps into the ministry.

Little did either Robert or Jane, or anyone in the family—older sister Rachel or father or mother—know anything about the man who had been sitting in one of the pews listening with the fire of hatred in his eyes at what he heard. He left the church that day and they forgot all about him.

But it was that day's sermon that would change both the lives of the minister's son and the angry listener.

For young Robert, his commitment to the ministry was not just an idle whim. He took to reading his Bible, and within two years he was studying seriously, reading theological books, and following with great interest the careers of the most notable evangelists of the day. At sixteen he preached his first sermon, filling in for his father one Sunday when he was away. The entire congregation was impressed, even a little awed by the maturity that was clearly developing in the young man's outlook and perspective.

But other things were growing within him as well. His rapid spiritual and intellectual progress provided fertile soil for the unseen growth of youthful pride and ambition—seeds that lay dormant within all but which often sprout most
vigorously in the most gifted. He did not merely want to be a minister, his dream was to become a
great
minister. His aspirations mounted as his knowledge of evangelical doctrine increased. He had no deep personal awareness of his own sin and fallen nature. And although his belief was real enough, it had not been tested against the realities of life, and as yet possessed little of the humility that is forged in failure and self-doubt. Things came easily, he was admired by all, and thus pride spread its subtle tentacles throughout his character.

As for the obscure listener who had slipped in and out of the church almost but not altogether unnoticed, his hatred deepened, as hatred that is not rooted out and destroyed always will. It grew to such passion during his years as a Confederate soldier that he spoke openly of killing Abraham Lincoln one day for freeing the nation's slaves. He never forgot the pastor's sermon he had heard years earlier. In his mind it was always linked to the Emancipation Proclamation, almost as if Lincoln himself had been sitting in the same pew that day listening to the minister's words and had based his later decision upon them. Deep in his heart, the vengeance he vowed on behalf of the South and the Confederacy, if opportunity ever presented itself, remained equally directed toward the president and the minister. Both were part of the same evil cause. Vengeance must be exacted against them.

Opportunity did present itself in the year 1864 when he found himself back in Baltimore. The war had begun to turn against the Confederacy. Some master stroke was needed to arouse the South with new passion for its cause. What more fitting public display than the assassination of a leading Southern minister who was a traitor to the Confederacy? It would make his assassin a hero, and reignite the war effort.

One Sunday morning, halfway through the morning worship service, the doors of Baltimore's Congregational Assembly suddenly burst open with a crash and bang.

The minister glanced over the heads of his congregation at the interruption. His voice stopped. Heads throughout the building turned. But there was no time to think what to do. A man wearing Confederate grey, long dirty blond hair flying wildly, ran halfway down the center aisle shouting curses and threats and waving a pistol in the air.

“He's got a gun!” someone shouted.

A shot rang out toward the front. One of the stained-glass windows shattered and glass fell to the floor.

Screams erupted throughout the church. Pandemonium broke loose. The minister dove behind the pulpit while the congregation fell to the floor, seeking cover beneath their pews. More shots exploded wildly in every direction, their echoes mixed with piercing screams from the women in a frenzy of terror.

“Death to all traitors!” shouted the mad intruder. “Long live the Confederacy!” Then he turned, blasted another random volley of explosive gunfire, and fled as quickly as he had come.

As the terrified echoes died away, the men and women of the church slowly crept out of hiding. One of the men ran outside and hurried for the police. The sound of weeping could be heard at the front of the church.

Slowly everyone stood and looked around to see if anyone was hurt. Murmurs spread about as some moved to the aisles. A cluster formed in front. Gradually people moved toward it.

Sudden gasps and exclamations of shock broke the subdued quiet.

“Oh no . . . God . . . no!”

Sobs of stunned grief spread as the rest hurried forward and beheld the horror.

The minister's wife sat, face white, eyes glazed over, her daughter in her arms. The girl's entire chest was red with blood from a stray bullet straight through her heart. They all knew from a single glance that she was dead.

Without pausing to think what he was doing, the girl's seventeen-year-old twin and aspiring preacher sprinted from the church, fighting stinging tears that blurred his vision. As he emerged into the street, he was just in time to see the murderer disappear at the end of the long street and turn to the left.

At the sight, a sensation arose within him foreign to what he had ever felt in his life. A huge wave of fury, indignation, and wrath filled his being. He did not at the moment identify it as
hatred
. He simply felt its passion and acted as it urged him—to get the man and make him pay for what he had done.

Without hesitation, he ran inside the house and up the stairs to his father's bedroom. Seconds later he was descending the staircase, his grandfather's Colt 45 in his hand and the box of bullets that had come with it stuffed in his pocket, his vow of the pastorate temporarily forgotten. The gun was only a family heirloom. He didn't know if it had ever been fired. But it was the only weapon in the house.

Hastily he saddled a horse and galloped along the street in pursuit.

P
URSUIT

3

A
T SEVENTEEN ROBERT KNEW HE HAD REACHED THE
age when most young men throughout the South were in the army and fighting in the war. He must reach a decision soon, whether to join up or enter the seminary as had long been his intent. But what was the
right
thing—that he didn't know. He did not know it yet, but this day would be pivotal in that decision.

Because of his own personal quandary, the progress of the war had been much on the mind of the minister's son. He read the newspaper accounts and kept track of troop movements. He had been well aware of the march of Confederate troops under General Early that had been coming this way in hopes of threatening Washington from the north. He knew that a regiment had set up camp a few miles west of the city only days earlier. How long they were scheduled to be here, he did not know. They were waiting for the remainder of General Early's command, as well as instructions from General Lee.

As he galloped away from the church in pursuit, blinking back tears and trying to shake from his brain the image of his dead sister's face, he was driven on by a seething fury within him. Yet, he did not know what he expected. He had gone
after the man almost without realizing what he was doing, hoping desperately that
something
would come of it. At the moment the adrenalin of stunned shock drove him with instinct more than rationality or reason.

He bent his horse's head around to the left where he had seen the gunman disappear. The street was empty. Gradually he slowed. Reason, to the extent it was capable, slowly returned to his feverish brain.

The man had probably had a horse waiting. He was obviously gone. But this street led west out of town. That's where the troops were garrisoned. Where else could he be but there? Where better to hide than among five thousand men all dressed exactly alike?

He dug his heels in and galloped ahead. Maybe it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But he had one advantage. He had seen the man's face and would recognize him in an instant. No matter how many years went by, he would never forget it. The image of that face had been seared into his brain forever.

Forty minutes later he rode into the Confederate encampment. He slowed and surveyed the scene before him. His heart sank. Never had the needle and haystack analogy seemed more appropriate. He had hoped to see
something
or
someone
along the way that might betray the man's whereabouts. But there had been nothing. For all he knew the man wasn't even part of this regiment. He could have left the city in the opposite direction. He might not be a soldier at all. The uniform could have been a ruse. He could have disappeared in any of ten thousand places.

Yet the likelihood seemed greatest that he was here. But how to find him?—Walk around, listen, watch . . . hope he overheard something, or happened to catch sight of him?

It was a long shot . . . but what else was there to try?

He rode forward, dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and began to walk casually between the tents and campfires. No
one paid much attention to him, glancing his way as he passed but saying nothing. They were used to civilians coming to gawk when they were near cities. What was one more teenage boy wanting to see soldiers up close? That he looked younger than his seventeen years contributed to the ease of his anonymity. The soldiers, some of them younger than he was, were obviously weary of this war and anxious to go home.

The passion of his anger slowly subsided. He never saw it for what it was, thinking it only the terrible emotion of the moment. It settled into a fierce quiet resolve to find the killer and bring him to justice if it took the rest of his life. The seed of hatred had sprouted and quickly sent down its roots. But it shrank back into invisibility again, and he had no idea what was growing in his heart.

He walked aimlessly for several hours, listening to conversations as he went, trying to detect anything that might provide a clue, hardly aware what a drain it was to block from his mind the horror of why he was here. He had had nothing to eat or drink since morning, but the emotional fatigue was far deeper.

At last, however, mental and physical exhaustion setting in, and no longer able to keep the morning's events at bay, the fact of his sister's death returned upon him with overwhelming force. He found a place a little away from anyone and slumped down beside a tree and broke into sobs.

That's where an officer found him several minutes later as he walked by on his way to the horse corrals. He looked down and stopped.

“You all right, son?” he asked. “Anything I can do for you?”

“No . . . no, thank you, sir,” he replied, struggling to regain his composure.

“You a soldier?”

“No, sir . . . just out from the city for a look around.”

“Personal trouble?”

“Yes, sir.”

The officer's eyes went to the gun in his hand.

“In a place like this,” he said, “I'd keep that out of sight if I were you. People might get the wrong idea. They might think you mean to use it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It's also the kind of gun that somebody might take a fancy to, if you get my meaning.”

“Yes, sir.”

The officer continued to look him over for another second or two, then walked on.

He got up, wiped his eyes, returned to his horse, and rode home.

In the midst of their terrible grief, no one from the church or in the crowd that came and went all day at the parsonage realized the minister's son was not among them for most of the afternoon. Several policemen came, as well as the doctor. The minister had been wounded in the shoulder and was taken to the hospital. Another lady had a flesh wound in the arm and was treated on the spot.

But the great tragedy was the senseless killing of an innocent young girl for no reason that anyone could comprehend. All day the pressing question was asked in a hundred different ways:
Why?

Upon interrogation of church members, gradually the face of the soldier began to remind a few of the witnesses of a young man who had attended Congregational Assembly several times three or four years earlier. As they began to piece their recollections together, the name Damon Teague surfaced.

It was something to start with, said the man in charge. They would look into it and see if he could be tracked down through military sources. In the meantime, he added, it would be helpful if they were to search their church records to see if
any evidence could be found of when Teague attended Congregational Assembly. It would offer no proof of anything, but might be one more missing piece in the puzzle.

The girl's body was taken to the undertakers. The mother was put to bed, still in shock. A number of windows in the church had been shattered. Some of the men spent the afternoon boarding them up. Thoughts of the women all turned to food and the grief-stricken family. There was no shortage of volunteers to make sure the minister's family was well provided for.