“Dolores has brought her brother Jacky home,” I said, and Lincoln emerged from the car, already mostly transformed back into himself. Lamon handed him his top hat to complete the picture. Lincoln set his large hand on my shoulder for just a moment, mouthed Thank you, and climbed up into the waiting wagon, heading forward.
The men drove off with their new president, and I remained behind to clean up, so weary I could barely stand. After I’d rested, I could let myself feel relief and satisfaction. First, there was work to be done.
? ? ?
Two days later, at the inauguration, we five Pinkertons were reunited. Hattie, Pinkerton, Bellamy, DeForest, and myself, all unscathed. We gathered to watch Lincoln become the president. For the moment, our disguises and roles were all set aside. We were ourselves.
Standing along Pennsylvania Avenue, the scaffolded white dome of the Capitol looming above us in the distance, I couldn’t believe our good fortune. If I’d been asked at the beginning of our sojourn whether we five would all make it through the Baltimore adventure, I wouldn’t have said yes. Dangers seemed too many, and we seemed too few. But we had this moment, breathing the air and standing together, and I was determined to savor it.
“I’m having new cards made for the agency,” said Pinkerton.
I shot him a quizzical look. Now didn’t seem the time for housekeeping.
“They’ll have our new motto.”
“Which is?”
“We Never Sleep,” he said and clapped me on the shoulder. He had never beamed at me with such obvious pride. It almost made me blush. A cheer went up from the crowd, which I knew was coincidence, but it still warmed my heart. What we’d done wouldn’t be known by the general public for many years, if at all. If a misattributed cheer was the only type I might get, I’d gladly take it.
Pinkerton moved on to whisper something to Bellamy, and I saw him clap the other man on the shoulder much as he’d done with me. If Bellamy was angry that our boss had congratulated a mere woman first, he didn’t show it. He smiled and shook Pinkerton’s hand with vigor. It was indeed a day for optimism and new beginnings.
I knew Pinkerton was apprehensive because Lincoln had chosen to ride to the inauguration in an open carriage, but once he arrived for his swearing-in, even the boss breathed a bit easier.
Hattie and I clasped hands. On my other side, Bellamy radiated a pure joy I’d never suspected he was capable of; on impulse, I reached out for his hand too. He didn’t seem to react, but neither did he pull his fingers away. DeForest and Hattie twined their hands together as well, exchanging smiles. And the five of us watched as Abraham Lincoln—our Lincoln—was sworn in as president of the United States.
Even though we wondered how long the nation could be seen as united, there was an undeniable power in seeing him inaugurated. It felt like a hopeful moment. It felt right.
We heard the end of his speech in utter silence.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
I liked the idea that my nature might have better angels in it. Thinking on the things I’d done, bad things for good reasons, I wanted to believe behavior alone didn’t tell a person’s story. I looked at Pinkerton’s face, Hattie’s, Bellamy’s, DeForest’s, Lincoln’s. What had we done so far to get here? Deceived, lied, disguised, misled, threatened, entrapped, captured, hurt. If war came, or even if it didn’t, what more would we do? Were we devils, even on the angels’ side?
? ? ?
After the Baltimore sojourn, Pinkerton insisted we rest. He suggested some sort of rural retreat, but I only wanted to be in Chicago. I had been away too long. And I knew that despite the successful installation of our man in the presidency, there were still dissenting voices to be heard in many, many different places, and I had no doubt I would be sent out to listen to them again.
So while I could, I stayed. I walked to Humboldt Park, lunched at Calliope’s, and spent countless hours simply watching strong men raise the buildings along the river. It was a miracle of modern engineering. The river had always fed the city, but it also posed a threat. Water had never drained properly from buildings on the riverfront, and it was only growing worse over time. A sewer system was the obvious answer, but the buildings were too low, with no space underneath. Chicagoans being who they were, they simply decided the obvious solution was to lift the buildings up. Sewer pipes had been laid atop the ground, and now the ground would be brought up higher than the pipes to bury them. It was the most modern feat I could imagine.