Then came an insipid man, indistinguishable except for his hand and arm swaddled in bandages, but behind him was the tallest man Nathaniel had ever seen. He was a black man, at least six and a half feet tall, and his hands were in his pockets. He wore the uniform of a Pullman porter.

“Hands out of your pockets,” Nathaniel called to him, and the porter obeyed.

Then two gunshots cracked through the air, and chaos broke loose.

The next few seconds lasted for an eternity.

Nathaniel leapt in front of the president, but McKinley was already falling to the ground. Sullivan lunged toward a cluster of men struggling over a gun. A fight broke out. The black man tackled the shooter and struggled for the gun as a third shot rang out. Nathaniel straddled the president’s body, bracing for the impact of another bullet, but none came. He gaped at the thrashing men only a few feet away.

The man with the bandaged hand—the bandages had been hiding a gun. The porter wrenched the pistol away, and Sullivan dove in and punched the gunman in the face, blood flying. Police swarmed, grabbing the gunman’s hands and pinning him to the ground as the pummeling continued.

Blood was spreading over McKinley’s chest and abdomen. “Get a doctor,” Nathaniel shouted to one of the officers.

Despite his injuries, the president was still conscious. “Go easy on him, boys,” he gasped to the men beating the shooter.

The following minutes were a haze of confusion. People screaming. Bodies pushing and shoving as the gunman continued to thrash while shouting obscenities. Then a policeman punched him so hard that he stopped talking.

Two men arrived carrying a stretcher they set down beside the president. “Sir, we’re going to move you to the medical building,” the orderly said.

McKinley nodded. “All right. Do it.”

Nathaniel squatted alongside the orderlies. The color drained from McKinley’s face and he groaned in agony as they heaved him onto the stretcher. That groan ripped through Nathaniel’s heart, but he had to stay calm. As soon as the police cleared a path for the makeshift stretcher, they were on their way.

The hospital was only a few acres ahead. Heat and sunlight pounded down, and appalled onlookers watched as they carried the president, covered in blood but still conscious. Some of the onlookers wept, some crossed themselves.

It was cool inside the modest hospital as orderlies scrambled to prepare the operating room. Nathaniel walked alongside the president the whole way. They set him on the operating table, and McKinley gestured for Nathaniel. He looked awful, his face pasty white and covered in perspiration.

“Be careful how you tell her,” he whispered. “Be very careful.”

Nathaniel’s heart lurched. He had failed everyone. His president. Mrs. McKinley. This good man lay gasping for air, all because Nathaniel hadn’t noticed that bandaged hand in time.

“We’ll be very careful, sir.”

Twenty-Eight