David Healey - Rebel Train

“Follow me, lad,” Flynn said quietly. “Let the conductor punch your ticket, then we’ll find a seat.”

Finally, the train coasted to a stop in front of the station with a burst of steam and a squeal of brakes. Flynn practically had to pull Benjamin up the steps after him.

“Come on, lad,” he said, and led the way through the car to an empty seat.

Flynn glanced around at his fellow passengers. Much to his relief, there were few young men and no Union uniforms. They would be better off without any hot-blooded heroes. Mostly the car was filled with white-haired gentlemen whose folded hands rested securely on their paunches, and matronly women who held baskets of food for the trip.

The exception was a couple across the aisle from where he and Benjamin sat. The woman was slim, dark, and pretty, and the man was dressed in flashy clothes like a gambler. The dandy’s arms and broad shoulders strained against the fabric of the suit, which looked to be a size too small for him, and he had a crooked nose that had been broken at some point and badly set.

Flynn had dealt with enough riffraff in Richmond to know the fellow wasn’t any businessman, and the woman wasn’t any lady in the proper sense. They would bear watching, Flynn decided.

He swiveled in his seat to look around. Pettibone and Fletcher were two seats behind him, and their eyes met his, then glanced away. Cephas Wilson, the engineer, was already in conversation with a portly gentleman. Percy was the last of the raiders to board, and he appeared in the car’s doorway and casually walked up the aisle, nodding to Flynn and Benjamin in the same way he nodded to everyone else on the train.

Hudson was nowhere in sight. Maryland might be part of the Union, but that didn’t mean a black man could travel with the white passengers. He was riding in the baggage car. The rest of the raiders were in the other passenger car.

“This ain’t what I expected,” Benjamin grumbled in a low voice. “I thought there would be soldiers around, not old men and ladies. I don’t want to kill none of them, even if they are Yankees.”

“The longer it takes to pull a gun on this train, the better off we’ll be,” Flynn muttered in reply. He didn’t tell the boy, but he was sure they would have a lot more than old men and ladies to worry about before the day was through.

Aside from Percy’s men, only a few passengers got on at the station. Soon, the train lurched forward, and the locomotive up ahead emitted a powerful chug. The noise came faster and faster. Before long the scenery of Ellicott Mills was slipping by and cinders from the smokestack began to clink against the window glass like sleet.

Well , thought Flynn. It’s begun .

The door of the car opened, and the conductor walked in. He was a bulldog of a man, of average height and stout through the middle. His blue B&O uniform was crisp and the brass buttons gleamed. It made Flynn painfully aware of his own somewhat ragged state after the headlong journey from Richmond.

“Tickets, please,” the conductor announced, and began to make his way down the aisle. He took his time, checking tickets, nodding officiously, and answering questions. Flynn recalled the dark car that held Lincoln at the end of the train. How could the man be so calm knowing such an important passenger was aboard?

He doesn’t know , Flynn realized. Oh, that’s lovely for us .

The conductor was soon at their seat. Beside him, Flynn felt Benjamin go stiff as a bird dog. He touched the boy’s knee to calm him.

“Tickets,” the conductor said, and Flynn handed over both his own and Benjamin’s. The man looked from the tickets to the two men in the seat. “Cumberland. Well. Not many folks headed that way in these times. You hardly know from one day to the next whether it’s a Union city or Confederate.”

“Let’s hope it’s Union at the moment,” Flynn said. “I’ve had my fill of fighting those damn Rebs.”

Beside him, Benjamin stiffened. Flynn prodded him with the toe of his boot.

“You’re a veteran, are you?” the conductor asked with sudden interest.

“Took a bullet at Gettysburg on the third day,” Flynn said. “Now that I’m out of the hospital down there to Washington City, I’m on my way to visit my people.”

The conductor nodded sympathetically. “I took my bullet at First Bull Run,” he said. “That was enough of the war for me. I’ve been running trains since then.”

As he handed back the tickets, the conductor stopped and scowled.

“I don’t allow drinking on my train,” he said gruffly and loudly enough for the other passengers to hear. “Veteran or not, I don’t play favorites.”

Startled, Flynn realized the conductor was staring at the neck of a pint bottle of whiskey poking from his coat pocket. Flynn had no idea how the bottle had gotten there. As the conductor moved on with a disapproving air, Flynn felt Colonel Percy’s eyes upon him. He looked up and met Percy’s angry glare. The colonel had forbidden any drinking — they were soldiers on duty — and the steely eyes held a promise of wrath to come. Besides, the whiskey bottle had attracted unnecessary attention to Flynn.

He was still stumped as to how it had appeared in his pocket. And then he remembered Willie Forbes bumping into him on the station platform. Of course! It was an old pickpocket’s trick, only Forbes had used it to put something in Flynn’s pocket, not steal something out of it.

Why would Forbes do that?

Hazlett. He must have put Forbes up to it. Forbes would do anything the sergeant told him. Pettibone had warned him Hazlett was a sly bastard. From now on, Flynn knew he would have to watch his back.

Flynn noticed the conductor had nothing but an unfriendly look for the dandy across the aisle. “You again,” Flynn overheard the conductor saying to the man. “I remember you from last month. I won’t trouble you about your tickets this time.”

As the conductor moved on, the man stared at his back, muttered something, and flipped open his jacket to reveal the butt of a revolver.

“Charles,” the woman whispered harshly, just loudly enough for Flynn to overhear, and flipped the jacket back over the handgun.

Flynn wondered what it was all about. He was careful, though, not to appear too curious.

The conductor finished checking all the tickets, then moved on to the next car.

“You didn’t have to go making friends with him,” Benjamin said. “If he hadn’t seen that whiskey bottle, I reckon he might have invited you home to supper.”

Flynn laughed. “Always make friends when you can, lad. There’s more profit in it than in making enemies. After all, when you meet a strange dog, don’t you give him your hand to smell first? It will be hard for him to bite it later. It’s the same with men.”

Outside, the scenery rushed past. It was rough, hilly country, and the leaves were mostly gone from the trees, leaving the landscape bare and brown. The tracks followed the Patapsco River, which twisted and turned through the valley as it led deeper into the countryside. There were far too many curves for the train to move with any real speed, so the raiders bided their time, each mile feeling like an eternity.

As the train rolled on, the raiders in the car exchanged anxious glances.

“Not long now, lad,” Flynn whispered to Benjamin.

At last, they steamed into a sleepy town ringed by more of the same rough terrain, with houses built into the hills rising above the river. A main street ran perpendicular to the Patapsco, crossing the river at a newly built bridge. J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry had burned the old bridge a few months before on their roundabout ride to Gettysburg.