David Healey - Rebel Train

Fletcher was heartened to hear the implied criticism of the colonel. “Percy doesn’t want the money touched,” he said lamely.

Hazlett snorted. “He wouldn’t, would he? The colonel has all the money he wants. He’s a rich man back home. It’s all well and good for him to say, ‘Leave the money alone, boys,’ when he’s already got his own.” Hazlett leaned close and lowered his voice. Fletcher could smell whiskey on his breath, even though Percy had forbidden any drinking during the raid. “What we should do, Captain, is take that money and skedaddle. All of us. We can leave this whole damn war behind, every one of us a rich man.”

Fletcher realized he was on dangerous ground, that Hazlett must be testing him somehow. At the same time, he knew he had found a kindred spirit on this raid. He, too, thought they should take the money, abandon the raid, and count themselves lucky.

Not that he didn’t have his doubts and sense of obligation. After all, Colonel Norris had sent him to make certain the raid went as it should. Back in Richmond, he had served Norris well. At the same time, he knew he was nothing more than Norris’s underling. Norris would never treat him as an equal. What other choice did Fletcher have but to do whatever Norris said? Flynn could act arrogantly and get away with it because he was just a low-born Irishman. If he fell, there wasn’t far to fall. Fletcher didn’t have that luxury because he held a certain position in society. But without money, or a sense of bravado, he relied on other skills to get ahead.

It was also true that Norris — like Percy — was a member of the Southern aristocracy. He was educated and wealthy. He could afford to turn his back on a fortune in Yankee money in favor of duty. But could Fletcher? Hazlett’s words had taken root.

“What about Lincoln?” Fletcher asked. “We’re to bring him to Richmond.”

Hazlett shrugged. “We shoot Honest Abe, and that’s the end of that. Way I see it, we done our duty.”

Fletcher realized he had walked into the middle of a mutiny in the making. As an officer, he knew he should denounce the plot and warn Percy, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk out. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in honor and duty. It was just that he believed in money even more. He wanted to be rich. Fletcher believed money was the only thing that would put him on an equal footing with men like Norris and Percy.

“All right, there’s Percy,” Hazlett said. “We know he ain’t goin’ to see it our way.”

“Anybody else with us?” Cook asked.

“Forbes will be. He may be a drunk, but he ain’t no fool,” Hazlett said. “And he’s up on the locomotive, which might be helpful when the time comes.”

“Now who’s against us?” Cook asked.

Hazlett thought a moment. “Cephas Wilson and Hank Cunningham are busy drivin’ this here train. They already got their hands full. That leaves Flynn and the kid, Johnny Benjamin. Flynn ain’t as tough as he looks and Benjamin, hell, he ain’t hardly more than a boy. That fat man almost squashed him.”

“He did shoot one of the passengers,” Fletcher pointed out.

“It ain’t so hard to kill a man.” Fletcher noticed Hazlett had stopped calling him “sir.”

“What about Pettibone and Hudson?” Cook asked. “You think they might see things our way?”

“They ain’t goin’ along with us, if that’s what you mean,” Hazlett said. “They’re too loyal to the colonel. Right now, they’re guarding Lincoln. We’ll just have to deal with them last.”

Fletcher remembered the wounded lieutenant and the passenger who had volunteered to nurse him. “What about Lieutenant Cater and the woman?”

“Cater’s half dead and we can finish the job easy enough. Hell, back home he’s almost as rich as Percy.” Hazlett grinned wickedly. “The woman? Why, Captain, I reckon you can pull rank and take her. She does look like a juicy piece. ’Course, Cook and me might want her when you’re through. Serious now, you can have her, Captain, just as long as I get Flynn. Nobody else can kill that bastard. He’s mine.”

Fletcher felt an odd excitement. When he mentioned the woman, it hadn’t been to do the things Hazlett hinted at. But then again, why couldn’t he have her? To the victor went the spoils. This was war, after all. He felt like a new man, taking what he wanted: money, women, freedom.

Hazlett handed him a flask of whiskey. “Drink on it,” he said.

Fletcher drank. There was no going back now. He knew he was in this thing to the end.

Percy looked at the trail of smoke behind them, then at the engine’s tender. Hank Cunningham and Willie Forbes worked like madmen to feed the locomotive’s firebox. Their efforts were quickly using up the cordwood that remained. It wouldn’t be long before the Chesapeake ran out of fuel.

“How much farther to the next depot?” Percy asked.

The engineer gave the water gauge a worried glance. “Kearneysville is about six miles off,” he said. “We’ll need to take on water, too, Colonel. We’re just about bone dry. We have to stop at the Kearneysville depot if those Yankees back there will let us.”

“They will,” Percy said. “I have a surprise planned for them.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Colonel,” Wilson said. “I reckon we won’t get much farther if we don’t stop in Kearneysville.”

As soon as Percy turned his back, Forbes climbed into the tender again with Cunningham and uncorked a bottle of whiskey.

“Where did you get that?” Cunningham asked.

“This is the bottle the colonel made Flynn throw away,” he explained. “I picked it up. Couldn’t let good whiskey go to waste.”

“Don’t let Percy see you with that,” Cunningham warned him. “He’ll make you walk back to Richmond.”

Forbes shrugged and took a long pull from the bottle, which was already half empty. When Cunningham refused a drink, he hammered the cork home with his palm. “Suit yourself. But this might be the last chance you get to take a drink in this world.”

With Captain Fletcher out of the car, Flynn and Nellie could talk more freely. Lieutenant Cater remained unconscious and Johnny Benjamin was at the back of the car, watching the trail of smoke gradually gaining on them.

“It’s not going to be easy to take the money now,” Flynn observed.

“We’ll find a way,” Nellie said. “There’s always a way.”

“That won’t make things any easier,” Flynn said, nodding at the smoke. “Those bastards chasing us won’t give up.”

“The closer we get to Cumberland, the better our chances,” Nellie said.

“That damned Hazlett will have his eye on the money,” Flynn said. “I’d wager a chunk of what’s in that car that he’s already scheming how he can steal the money.”

“We’ll just have to stay one step ahead of him,” Nellie said. “I don’t trust that Captain Fletcher, either. He’s in there talking to Hazlett.”

“Hazlett plays him like a fiddle.”

Benjamin walked over. “What are you two whispering about?”

Flynn grinned. “Well, lad, if you must know, I’m whispering sweet nothings in Miss Nellie’s ear.”

“Oh, Sergeant,” Nellie giggled flirtatiously and touched Flynn’s arm.

Benjamin blushed. He might be a good soldier and handy with a gun, but Benjamin was hardly more than a boy, fresh off the farm and naive about the ways of the world. For this exact reason, Flynn and Nellie already had agreed not to include him in their plans. He wouldn’t know what to do with a fortune in Yankee greenbacks, anyhow.

“What do you do back in Baltimore, Miss Nellie?” Benjamin asked. “I reckon you ain’t married.”