I nodded, thinking again about the ring in my coat pocket.

*   *   *

I was waiting for Elizabeth in the convention center's lobby when people suddenly began shouting and screaming in the backstage area.

He's still here! I drew my gun and ran down the hall. When I burst through the door, searching for the man with the gun, all I saw was Elizabeth and her companions with their arms around each other. Many were crying.

"Don't worry," an older man said loudly. "He's a bull moose. He'll be fine."

"He was shot in the chest, James," a woman said through her tears.

I pulled up next to Elizabeth, who was embracing a woman I didn't know, and took her arm. My eyes still scanning the room, I said, "Where is the gunman?"

She stepped back and turned to me. Her eyes floated in tears. "President Roosevelt was shot, Will," she said, her voice strangled. "In Milwaukee. He's still alive, at least he was half an hour ago. We just got the wire." She burst out crying. "They shot the Colonel."

Copyright © 2013 by D. E. Johnson