David Healey - Rebel Train

“Where’s Greer?” the man holding the shotgun asked. He was bigger than the others, and Percy took him to be the foreman.

“He took sick,” said Percy, which was the first thing that came to mind. He wondered who Greer might be.

The man stared at Percy for several long moments. Finally, he leaned to one side and spat a stream of brown tobacco juice, expertly hitting the rail. “Hell, it ain’t like Greer to let someone else run his train. That locomotive there is his pride and joy. He must be on his deathbed.”

“Well, it’s not his train, is it? It’s the B&O Railroad’s,” Percy pointed out. He was losing patience.

“I didn’t catch your name,” the foreman said.

“Arthur Percy.”

The crew foreman looked long and hard at the colonel. Behind him, Percy could sense his own men begin to grow uneasy, like a shifting in the wind.

“Never heard of no Percy,” the foreman said. “I know most everyone who works for the railroad, I reckon.”

“Well, I suppose you just haven’t heard of me.” This time, there was nothing friendly in Percy’s voice. “It’s good you came along. We’ll be needing your tools.”

“What are you talking about?” the foreman asked. “You don’t need tools on an engine. Not pry bars and shovels, at least.”

“There are raiders up ahead, and the tools will help put back the track they’ve torn up.”

“That why you boys all have your guns out?” the foreman asked. Percy sensed the tension going out of his men. “You reckoned we was Rebels?”

“That’s right,” Percy said. “We thought you were Rebels.”

“Hell!” The foreman suddenly laughed, harder and harder, until he nearly choked. Then he paused to cough up phlegm, which he spat to the ground in a long, ropy stream. “Rebels.”

“Well, you can’t be too careful in times like these.”

“Ain’t that God’s honest truth,” the foreman said. He added without any enthusiasm, “You want us to ride along to do the work for you?”

“I reckon we can handle it,” Percy said.

The foreman looked relieved.

They soon had all the workers’ tools loaded into the tender. Any fears that the men might be suspicious were dispelled when one of the crew climbed down the river bank and produced a stone jug from a hiding place in the Patapsco’s shallows. The men sat on the push car, drinking their chilled whiskey, and watched as the Chesapeake got underway again.

“I’ll be damned,” Percy said once the engine was chugging on toward Cumberland. “If the Yankees are all that easy to fool, we’ll have Lincoln in Richmond in two days’ time.”

Greer, Frost and Schmidt jogged up the tracks, badly winded. The sight of the hand car rolling toward them was like an answered prayer.

“Thank Gott ,” Schmidt wheezed. “Now we won’t have to walk back to Baltimore.”

“We’re not going back,” Greer growled. “We’re going after our train.”

Schmidt was too tired to argue. The three men stopped and caught their breath as the hand car rolled closer and coasted to a stop.

“George Greer!” shouted a man named Jones, whom Greer recognized as the crew foreman. The man’s leathery face wore a puzzled expression. “You ain’t laid up?”

“Hell no! Does it look like I am?”

The foreman jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The conductor back there said you was sick, so he was running your train. Some fellow name of Percy. I thought it all seemed awful strange.”

“Conductor? He’s a thief! The son of a bitch stole my train.”

Excitement swept over the workmen. Greer could smell whiskey on their breath, which was no surprise. Track workers were the bottom rung of the railroad hierarchy, and he was in no mood to waste time on these drunken fools. “Why the hell didn’t you stop them?” he snapped.

“We didn’t know they was thieves. Besides, there was a lot of ’em and they had guns.”

“Guns?”

“Told us there was trouble on the tracks west of here. Hell, Greer, you know as well as I do that the Rebs jump over into Maryland every chance they get to play hell with the tracks.”

It was true enough. The Harpers Ferry bridge, for instance, had been burned and rebuilt so many times that Greer could no longer keep count. But he wasn’t ready to let the foreman and his men off the hook too easily.

“You could have asked more questions and drank less whiskey.”

“Goddamnit, Greer, I’m tellin’ you they had guns—”

“Where are your tools?” Greer asked, suddenly noticing the bed of the hand car was empty.

“They took ’em,” the foreman said. “They said the tracks ahead might need to be repaired on account of the Rebs.”

Now it was Greer’s turn to swear. He cussed till he was breathless and sputtering, and when he finished, the workmen’s mouths gaped open in various degree of astonishment.

Greer spat out a final oath and glared at the men. “What do you think the Rebs are going to do with those tools, you jackasses? They’re going to tear up track! That’s what. You fools gave them just what they need to do it.”

“We didn’t know.” The foreman made a half-hearted attempt to defend himself. “Not much we could have done, anyhow.”

Greer had heard enough. “Get the hell out of my way,” he said. “We’ll take the hand car and go after them.”

The foreman protested. “It’s four miles into town—”

“You’ll walk it, goddamnit,” Greer snapped. He climbed aboard the push car and grabbed one end of the lever. “Frost, Schmidt, get on up here.”

“You’ll never catch up to a train on that contraption, Greer,” the foreman said.

“Let me worry about that. Now, when you get into town, tell Sykes at the hotel to wire ahead that the train’s been stolen. You got that? Someone might be able to stop them at the next station.”

The foreman shook his head. “I hope so, because you ain’t goin’ to catch them on no hand car.”

Greer ground his teeth. “Shut up, you damn fool. You leave it to us to see how much catchin’ up we can do.”

The work gang, now on foot, turned and headed east toward Sykesville. They had left a canteen behind, and the three men gratefully drank the water. Then Greer, Schmidt and Frost got the hand car moving. It was slow work starting from a dead stop, so Schmidt jumped off and began to push, grunting with the effort. The heavy crossbar moved up and down, faster and faster, and when the car began to pick up speed, Schmidt jumped aboard. As the three men began to work the crossbar in earnest, sweat broke out on their faces despite the fact that it was mid-November.

Greer couldn’t help thinking of the Chesapeake’s dual, five-foot tall driving wheels and the powerful steam engine that drove those wheels. The locomotive could do a mile a minute on level ground. A steam locomotive running at full throttle was an awesome sight to behold, and the muscle-powered hand car seemed too hopelessly slow to ever catch the Chesapeake .

Schmidt spoke the same thought out loud. “We’re too far behind. Let’s just turn back and let someone stop her at the next station.”

“Just put your back into it, Oscar,” Greer grunted as he shoved down the handle, powering the car along the tracks. “We’re going after our train.”

A few miles ahead, the Chesapeake was steaming along just the way her pursuers imagined. The steam pistons churned with a powerful rhythm, and a long plume of black smoke streamed behind her, creating a smudge on the otherwise brilliant blue autumn sky. The locomotive was a beautiful sight, spinning along the bright ribbon of track that cut through the golden fields of autumn.