The people of Dallas were proud of themselves, because they owed nothing to Nature, nothing to God, and, most empathetically, nothing to the federal government. That pride was the reason Colonel Byrd had chosen the city as his home after years of wandering and persecution in the service of his country. Like the original Creator, the Dallas people had built their city out of nothing. They had created their world in their own image and had gone to great lengths to keep it free of blemishes and the influence of coloreds and commies and labor unions. Only important people made important decisions here, which was as the founding fathers had intended the whole country to be.
Colonel Byrd wasn’t one of the decision makers of Dallas yet, but he would be someday. There were many here who shared his values, who recognized the danger that the country was in, who were alarmed by the steady destruction by the termites at work inside the timbers of the Republic, and Dallas didn’t lack the will to fight. There were right-thinking people here, and he had found a remarkable number of them in such a short time. His organization of them into an effective political unit was progressing nicely. Many of them, especially the women, worshipped him. And why not? Wasn’t he a hero? Hadn’t he served his country well, even ignoring the will of his so-called superiors when they tried to turn him from his duty as he saw it? The time would come when Dallas would invite him to the inner sanctum of the decision makers, and he would be ready. Dallas, the city built on guts and daring and nothing else, would become his headquarters for a great crusade. Dallas would be to Luther Byrd what Geneva had been to John Calvin. The center from which the true gospel of Americanism would spread.
Colonel Byrd realized that he was standing at attention. And why not? His thoughts were honorable, and it was an honorable cause on which he has embarked, more honorable than fighting the Germans had been, more honorable than defeating a country that had meant no harm to right-thinking people, more honorable, certainly, than getting fired for having beliefs and acting on them.
Fired. That’s what the Jew-dominated eastern newspapers had said. How the pinkos had crowed over that. How smug they were in their belief that Luther Byrd had been muzzled at last, that the Paul Revere of the modern age had been shut up. He felt more honorable, cleaner, purer, standing at attention in his silk robe in the damp night air of Dallas than he ever had genuflecting to the will of the Pentagon and the White House. He regretted only that Hannah wasn’t with him on his balcony, that he couldn’t speak his thoughts aloud to her and hear her quiet agreement. They had killed her. Their persecution of him had weakened her heart. She couldn’t bear to see what they were doing to him, and seventeen days after his humiliation, she died. Poor Hannah. Poor, poor Hannah. He had tried to tell her he wasn’t through, that he would go on fighting and would finally win, but she never really believed. Not really. If she had believed, she would be standing beside him now, listening to his thoughts and admiring the beautiful Dallas skyline.
The traffic light down on Turtle Creek, going idiotically through its sequence of signals—green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red—sending its orders to no one, controlling nothing, was what his life in the army had become. A sequence of futile signals, useless warnings to no one. He was glad to be out of it. Maybe he could use the traffic-light image in one of his pamphlets or speeches. The red could signify the Reds, and the yellow—what? The cowards? The yellowbellies who merely cautioned but commanded nothing, controlled nothing? Well, it would take some thought. It could be effective, though, thought through and printed in color.
Maybe he should get out his uniform and wear it tomorrow. The map in the evening paper indicated that the motorcade would move down this very street, through this very intersection. He would have his flag flying from the balcony, upside down as usual, sending its message of distress to those who knew enough to know what an upside-down flag meant. The men in the motorcade would know. Kennedy would know. Johnson would know. The Secret Service would know. They would look. They couldn’t help looking. What if he were standing beside the flag in full dress, at attention? Would they know who he was? Would they recognize Colonel Luther A. Byrd, whom they had tried to disgrace? A dignified protest. The press boys would see it and use it, especially if they saw it was Luther Byrd sending a message. Would they know? The Secret Service would know. They would know where Luther Byrd was when Kennedy came to Dallas. But would they tell the press?
The clock struck five. Colonel Byrd always heard it strike five, the time for the security check. He stepped inside and slid the heavy glass door closed and locked it. He reached between the wall and the back of the sofa and got the length of the pipe that he always slid into the groove in which the door slid, to keep it from opening if the enemy somehow got to the balcony and picked the lock. He drew the drapes over the glass and moved to the heavy, solid wooden door he had installed to the hallway and checked the three deadbolt locks. All secure. He opened the drawer of the little antique chest beside the door and lifted out the heavy army Colt .45 automatic. Yes, the clip was full, and a round was in the chamber. The Luger in the bathroom was loaded, too. He tucked it back under the towel on top of the toilet tank, then pissed and washed his hands and brushed his teeth again. He picked up the pair of military hairbrushes beside the sink and ran them through his silver hair and snapped to attention in front of the mirror, admiring the contrast of the gray eyes and the leathery skin, kept brown in secret by a sunlamp, approving the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, the lack of flab, the sternest of the thin mouth. He turned off the light and returned to the bedroom and opened the drawer of the nightstand. The .45 there was ready, too, as he knew it would be. He laid his robe carefully across the end of the bed and set the slippers on the floor.
If he decided to wear the uniform, he must be careful that Kennedy couldn’t interpret it as a sign of respect. Maybe a black armband…
Two hours before dawn, the first ones arrived. They leaned against the storefronts, smoking, trying to stay out of the rain. They were union men, Ralph Yarborough men, stopping by to see the president before they went to work. As the parking lot slowly filled, they joked with each other, joked with the cop in the yellow slicker on the bay horse, whistled at the young secretaries holding umbrellas.
“You think he’ll show up in this rain?” one of them said.
“Hell, yes,” his friend replied.
In the Will Rogers Suite, Lady Bird Johnson was dressing for the day. She was dreading Dallas, and her hands were trembling.
The Sixth Hour
RAYMOND
“YOU’VE BEEN IN THE BOONIES too long, Ray,” the White House man had said the first time they drove the route together. “The object of the motorcade is to let the people see him.”
“Our job is to protect the president,” Raymond has replied.
“Well, yeah. But you’ve got to be reasonable.”
Raymond Medley reached to the nightstand and plugged in the percolator, then lay back in bed. Every morning for two months, the thought of the motorcade had been the first to pop into his mind. He closed his eyes and visualized its route again and was glad that this was the last morning he would have to think of it.
He had driven every block of it ten times or