David Healey - Rebel Train

“Remember, lad, I gave you that gun to shoot soldiers, not old ladies. Best put it away till you need it. And need it you will, before the day is out.”

“Goddamnit, Flynn—”

Flynn glared at him. “That’s Sergeant Flynn to you, lad, and I’m tellin’ you to put that gun away. No use in causing trouble just yet.”

Benjamin gave him a sullen look, but did as he was told. They returned to the car they had ridden out from Ellicott Mills. Already the train was moving, groaning, shuffling ahead like an old man.

As the train began to roll, the three soldiers on the platform ran for the baggage car.

“It’s leavin’ without us, fellas,” one of the men shouted.

The guards had no reason to think the train was being stolen, so they did not shout for help to the soldiers across the river. Hudson was no longer sitting on the steps, but was waiting just inside the open doorway of the car. As the three guards crowded onto the narrow walkway at the front of the car, Hudson jumped out and used his massive arms to grab up all three startled guards in a bear hug. He hurled them off the train before they could even cry out in protest.

The guards landed in a heap on the far side of the train, out of sight of the encamped soldiers. One man writhed on the ground in pain, holding an arm that was twisted at an odd angle. Another guard jumped up and ran at Hudson, but he kicked the man neatly in the jaw and the soldier flopped to the ground.

The third man ran toward the train, bayonet at the ready, but he backed off when he saw the Colt revolver in Hudson’s hand. The guard raised his rifle to fire, but the train was picking up speed, and Hudson was already out of sight, giving the guard the side of the car as a target.

“Thieves!” he shouted, although the train drowned him out as it rolled away from the platform. “Thieves!”

“Biscuits and coffee for us,” George Greer said to Mrs. Sykes, scooting his chair closer to the table in the dining room of Sykes’s Hotel.

“Lots of coffee und butter for the biscuits,” added Oscar Schmidt, the engineer. He still had a hint of his German accent, even though he had lived in Baltimore for twenty years, and pronounced his “W’s” as “V’s.” “It vill be a long journey to Cumberland.”

“Hungry work,” agreed Walter Frost, the fireman. It was his job to keep water in the Chesapeake’s boiler and a steady supply of wood in the firebox. He was not a large man but he was sinewy and muscular. His hands were like leather, the fingers square-tipped stubs from handling cordwood all day. He had washed before entering the hotel, but ash still clung to the creases in his face and to his hair.

The three railroad men had made the run to western Maryland many times. Greer and Schmidt had worked together for years and knew each other almost as well as they knew their own wives. Frost wasn’t married, although there was a war widow he got on well with in Baltimore.

“What do you reckon is in that last car?” Frost asked. It had been attached to their train in the early morning hours as they left the city. An officer had told them it was being added to their train and that they should leave the car alone. He had been emphatic about that.

Greer shrugged. “Army business,” he said.

He was just as curious as Frost, of course, but he knew better than to be too inquisitive where the military was concerned. B&O officials assisted the military whenever possible, because they counted on the army to guard the tracks against marauding Confederates. Consequently, his bosses would not look kindly upon a nosy conductor.

It was bad enough that they were carrying the payroll for the Cumberland garrison. Greer guessed the mysterious car held nothing more interesting than good whiskey for the general at Cumberland, or possibly even a couple of Baltimore whores for the officers. He had heard of such things, and while he didn’t necessarily approve, he knew better than to question them out loud.

Schmidt spread butter on a biscuit, wolfed it down, then slurped noisily at his coffee.

“Damn goot ,” he said. “This should hold me until lunch in Harpers Ferry.”

Greer laughed. “Always thinking of your belly, aren’t you, Oscar?”

“A man can’t work on an empty stomach.”

The three men laughed and went on eating.

As Greer went to take another sip of coffee, his gaze settled on the train across the river. He stopped laughing, and his coffee cup froze halfway to his mouth.

“What is wrong?” Schmidt asked.

Greer barely heard him. He was busy watching a plume of thick, black smoke coming from the Chesapeake’s funnel, a telltale sign that someone was stoking the firebox.

“Look at that,” he said, aghast. His two companions turned, just in time to see the train lurch ahead, then start down the tracks.

Schmidt swore. “Someone’s taking our train!”

In the distance, they could barely hear someone shouting, “Thieves! Brigands!”

Suddenly the dining room exploded into action as the three men jumped up from the table. Coffee spilled, chairs fell over and a plate of biscuits clattered to the floor.

“Where are ya’ll goin’?” called Mrs. Sykes, running from the kitchen in alarm, but the railroad men were already out the door, sprinting for the bridge across the Patapsco.

Aboard the train, the passengers appeared only mildly concerned that the Chesapeake was slowly rolling out of Sykesville, even though several of their fellow passengers were still having breakfast at Sykes’s Hotel.

“What’s going on?” a fat matron demanded of Flynn, who had just come from outside.

“Not to worry, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat. “I believe there’s something to load on the last car, and the engineer had to pull the train ahead a few feet to bring the car even with the platform.”

Flynn spoke in a voice loud enough for the other passengers to hear, and his explanation seemed to satisfy the woman, who settled back down in her seat.

“Well, we’re going awfully fast,” she huffed.

The train gathered speed. Flynn expected at any moment to hear the shooting begin, but all was quiet except for the growing noise of the iron wheels turning ever faster on the rails beneath them.

“Young man, I don’t believe we’re going to stop,” the matron spoke up, sounding annoyed, as if she knew Flynn had misled her.

“The engineer must be drunk,” he said lamely. “It’s been known to happen.”

No one took exception to that. It seemed as good an explanation as any. Flynn looked out the window. They were moving much faster. The train rolled past a man on foot, quickly outpacing him. Trees flickered past. The brown autumn grass was a blur.

Flynn thought of all those Yankee soldiers nearby and expected at any moment to hear gunshots. Seconds passed, and the only sound was the scrape and clatter of iron wheels on the rails. He realized his armpits were damp and his palms sweaty.

Damn, he thought. We did it.

“Stay here, lad, and don’t move until I tell you,” he ordered Benjamin, and stepped out into the aisle. He made his way to the front of the car. Flynn didn’t want any of the passengers to leave the car, but he also didn’t want to make it seem as if he were guarding the door. That would come soon enough. He stood by the stove in the corner of the car and spent some time fishing a cigar out of his pocket, then patting down his coat in a search for matches.

“Someone ought to go up and tell that engineer to stop,” the fat matron said. “People have been left behind at the station.”

Flynn didn’t volunteer.

She cleared her throat loudly. “Young man—”