David Healey - Rebel Train

“Whatever happens is up to Colonel Percy now,” Flynn said, not eager to argue the point with Pettibone. He sensed that the rawboned corporal was one of the few raiders who didn’t seem eager to shoot him in the back first chance he got. He looked over at Benjamin, who was busy sighting his new Colt at trees and stumps they rode past, one eye squinted. “The odds don’t seem to bother this lad at all. Tell me, Johnny lad, how did you get mixed up with this bunch? What would your poor mother say?”

Benjamin holstered the Colt. “Well, I didn’t know nobody in Richmond after I got out of the hospital. I done had me a furlough pass for a few days, but not enough to get home. I just fell in with these fellers, got to drinkin’ with ’em, you know, and Colonel Percy fixed up a transfer so I could go on the raid.”

“You’re a fool to come with us, boy,” Pettibone said. “Won’t be many comin’ back.”

“Maybe I’m a fool, but at least I’ll be famous.”

They laughed. Flynn didn’t let the silence afterwards last long. “Tell me about the others,” he said.

“Ain’t much to tell,” Pettibone said. Still, he shrugged, and started to talk.

Aside from Flynn, Benjamin, and the two railroaders, Percy’s men were all from Fauquier County in Virginia. They had known each other practically since birth. Silas Cater, for instance, was actually a cousin of Percy’s. He had been off at Washington College studying philosophy when the war broke out. He was competent enough at making sure the guard was posted or at holding a flank, but he could never have replaced Percy. Still, he made a good captain and worshipped his older cousin.

Willie Forbes was a hopeless drunk. He drank in prodigious quantities at every opportunity and no amount of punishment could curb his taste for liquor. Oddly enough, he was a good soldier and he was never too drunk to ride. Besides, sober or drunk, he was a good man in a fight.

Bill Hazlett was a son of a bitch but they all put up with him. Most of the men were afraid of him. Percy had made him a sergeant mainly because of family connections. Hazlett, after all, was married to a cousin. However, he was competent enough and inspired a certain amount of fear in new recruits, especially the ones they had been getting recently to fill their regiment’s battle- and disease-depleted ranks. Hazlett had a mean streak wider than the Potomac River.

“Why doesn’t he like Irishmen?” Flynn asked. “I don’t think anyone’s been as hostile to an Irishman since Oliver Cromwell showed up at the gates of Drogheda.”

“I don’t know about this Cromwell you mentioned, but I do know Hazlett,” Pettibone said. “It’s best to keep on his good side.”

“He’s a pain in the arse,” Flynn said irritably. “I can promise you that he’ll be sorry if he ever sees my bad side.”

“How did he get his scar?” Benjamin asked. “I reckon it was in a knife fight.”

Pettibone snorted. “Not hardly, boy. He come home drunk one night and his wife hit him with a poker.”

John Cook had been a farmer back home. Not a very good one, though. When a cow or pig turned up missing, there was a chance you could find it in Cook’s pasture — or in his smokehouse. Still, he was a good-enough cavalryman, even if you couldn’t leave anything valuable lying about when he was around.

“What about you, Pettibone?” Flynn asked.

Pettibone shrugged. “Well, I ain’t that much different from the rest of ’em, I reckon. Got me a little farm, a wife and two young ’uns back home. Them Yankees got my dander up back in sixty-one, and I thought I’d sign up, fight the war, and be back home in two months. Here I am, over two years later.”

Flynn laughed. “Sure, and it’s better than farming.”

“I don’t know about that,” Pettibone said. “I don’t, indeed.”

Pettibone had hardly said more than two or three words all at once before he had explained his fellow Virginians to Flynn. They spent the rest of the afternoon swapping stories and talking about what they would do after the war. At nightfall, they stopped at a crossroads tavern and used some of the money Norris had given them to secure a room. Once again, Fletcher kept to himself, and the colonel and his servant went off alone.

Although Flynn didn’t let on, he knew the inn well. It was a common stopover for travelers between Virginia and Maryland, even though, officially, there wasn’t supposed to be travel between the two warring nations. The innkeeper recognized Flynn, although he knew better than to acknowledge him with anything more than a slight nod.

Once they were settled for the night, Flynn slipped away from his companions long enough to use a pencil to scratch a note on a piece of paper. It surprised some people that Flynn could write — in fact, he could read and write very well — although it was a skill he usually kept to himself.

Nov. 15

Colonel,

Fine bunch of misfits you have assembled. They seem very capable. We’ll be crossing the Potomac in the morning. Then the fun begins.

Norris had insisted that Flynn stay in touch with him, although Flynn himself didn’t see the point. What would he write to Norris about, the weather? But while he was in Virginia, he would follow Norris’s wishes, because the spymaster had a long arm. Once they crossed the Potomac into Maryland, Flynn planned to make his own rules — or some of them, at least.

When he was finished, he gave the envelope to the innkeeper. The man accepted the note and the Yankee greenback wrapped around it with the same nod he had given Flynn earlier.

The envelope was addressed to Colonel William Norris, Confederate Signal Bureau.

“Send it along to that bastard,” Flynn said. Colonel Percy had since retired to his room, so Flynn bought a bottle of cheap whiskey, gave Benjamin a cupful, and then he and Pettibone got drunk together in a corner of the inn.

The smugglers waited for the raiders in the shelter of a narrow creek that emptied into the Potomac River. The two men were short and wiry, with hands like leather and arms well-muscled from working the oars. The smugglers stood quietly, smoking pipes in the darkness, watching as the raiders stumbled toward them down the steep bank.

These smugglers had made many midnight crossings, ferrying people and goods between the Confederacy and Union. One of Colonel Norris’s agents had made the arrangements for that night’s services.

However, the smugglers had never carried a black man across the river. They looked sullenly at Hudson’s dark face, which shone like ebony in the moonlight.

“Is there a problem?” Percy asked, noticing the men’s silence.

“He can row hisself,” one of the smugglers said, jerking his chin at Hudson. He coughed up something from deep in his throat and spat into the creek.

Percy, having just traveled at breakneck speed from Richmond to this isolated cove, was in no mood to argue. Mission be damned, he thought, and opened his mouth to tell these water rats what he thought of them. Before he could make a sound, Flynn slipped past him and swatted the smuggler with a powerful blow that knocked the man off his feet.

“That man’s an officer,” Flynn said, his voice low and harsh. “You best show him some respect.”

There might have been more trouble if Hudson hadn’t slipped into the skiff, folding his huge frame into the craft with such cat-like grace that not so much as a ripple disturbed the glassy midnight stillness of the creek. He settled himself and tested a pair of oars in their locks.