"Stop that wailing," Flynn shouted at the crying woman. He raised the Le Mat and swung the muzzle around the car, demanding, “Any other Yankees present?"
No one moved. Finally, a bald, bespectacled man spoke up. "This one's still alive," he said. He was bent over the man Flynn had shot. There was a ragged hole in the wounded man's chest that was making ugly, bubbling noises. Pink froth showed at the man's lips and his eyes flicked desperately around the car. Flynn had seen enough men lung shot to know that the man had just minutes to live.
"Help me drag him out," Flynn said to the man with the glasses.
"He shouldn't be moved— "
"Shut up and grab his feet, you four-eyed son of a bitch, or I'll shoot you, too."
The man hurried to grab the feet.
Flynn turned to Benjamin. For all his talk about shooting Yankees, the boy was white as a boiled shirt. Flynn clapped him on the arm to snap him out of it. "Keep an eye on the passengers," Flynn said, speaking loudly so everyone in the car could hear. "Shoot anyone who moves."
Benjamin managed to nod, but kept his lips drawn into a tight line.
The door opened and Captain Fletcher appeared. "Colonel Percy sent me to see what all the shooting was about."
"Nothing we can't handle, Fletcher, unless you want to give us a hand with these bodies?"
Fletcher gave him a horrified look, then withdrew.
Flynn and the passenger carried the dead man out first, laying him on the small platform outside the car.
"What's your name?" Flynn asked the passenger.
"William Prescott."
"What do you do, Mr. Prescott? Obviously, you're not a soldier."
"I'm a lawyer," he said. "I have a practice in Baltimore."
Flynn smirked. "It's a shame you couldn't have gotten a bit of business from these two writing their wills. Too bad."
They went back for the wounded man. He was still alive, wheezing hard, his mouth ringed with pink froth from his lung wound. They laid him next to the dead man.
"He needs help or he's going to die," Prescott said.
"Oh, he's going to die, all right."
Then, as Prescott watched in horror, Flynn kicked first the corpse and then the wounded man off the platform. The train was moving at a good speed and the bodies bounced and tumbled, then flopped in the brush along the tracks.
"Oh my God," Prescott stammered. "You killed him."
"That was the idea," Flynn said, enjoying himself just a little too much. "Lung-shot like that, he had a minute or two to live before he drowned in his own blood. We did the fellow a favor. Now shut up and sit back down — unless you want me to throw you off the train, too."
White-faced, the fat lawyer scurried back into the car, and Flynn followed, wondering how long it would be before he had to shoot someone else.
Chapter 11
Greer dashed across the bridge and raced down the tracks after the Chesapeake.
“Come on!” he shouted over his shoulder at Frost and Schmidt, who were already falling behind. Schmidt’s huge belly flopped like a tub of raw sausages as he ran and Frost wasn’t much faster than the big German.
But someone was stealing his train, and blind rage was enough to propel Greer in a sprint down the tracks. The uneven railroad ties threatened to trip him at every stride and his leg ached from his old battle wound, but Greer stuck out his chin, pumped his arms, and ran for all he was worth.
Up ahead, he could just see the last car of the train, where two men stood on the platform. They were rapidly disappearing from sight.
Greer knew damn well that a man on foot couldn’t overtake a train. However, he was counting on the train stopping before long. It was one thing to get a locomotive rolling — with a little luck, almost anyone could do it if there was still a head of steam in the boiler — but it was another thing altogether to keep it moving. He was sure they would find the train around the next bend.
He took a quick look over his shoulder and saw Schmidt and Frost still lagging behind. Greer had hoped a few soldiers would join the chase, but so far only the engineer and fireman were in sight.
"Run!" he shouted at them. "We've got to catch that train!"
Inside the passenger car, Flynn saw that Benjamin still had his Colt at the ready, and the lad was keeping a close eye on the passengers. He looked pale, but the hand that held his revolver was steady enough. The passengers themselves were coping by various degrees. Some sat stone-faced, others cried, a couple of men looked angry enough to try something foolish, but Flynn decided they must be unarmed, or else they would have acted along with the two men he and Benjamin had been forced to shoot.
The blustery old couple, Alfred and Henrietta, looked indignant and rumpled, like hens caught in the rain. The image made Flynn smile, but his grin faded when he noticed the Baltimore tough and his woman. There was not the slightest hint of fear on their faces. Among all these hens, they had the look of foxes, Flynn thought. Cunning. The gunfight hadn't scared them a bit.
He touched Benjamin's arm. "Keep an eye on those two," he whispered. "They'll be the next to make a move."
"All right," the boy said.
He gave Benjamin's arm a squeeze. "You did good, lad," Flynn spoke quietly. "Those men didn't give us any choice."
"I know."
"If it comes to using your gun again, lad, don't hesitate," Flynn warned him. "If you do, you'll be the dead man next time. Shoot first, think later."
Benjamin nodded, as if he understood. Flynn hoped the boy did, because he was sure many more shots would be fired before the day was through.
Greer's arms were on fire and his legs felt heavy as logs, but he would be damned if someone was going to steal his train and get away with it. He kept running.
Slow as the train had started, it quickly gathered speed. The harder Greer ran, the further ahead the train seemed to get. Soon he watched it disappear around a bend, and he staggered to a halt, doubled over, and gasped for breath. Frost and Schmidt ran up behind him. They hadn't been running nearly as hard and weren't as winded, and they had brought along a young captain astride a chestnut mare. No other soldiers were in sight.
"Where were you five minutes ago?" Greer panted, glaring at the mounted officer. He hawked and spat, trying to catch his breath. "You could have caught them on that horse."
"What seems to be the trouble?" the captain asked. He was no more than twenty-one or two, young and arrogant.
"Deserters stole my train," Greer snapped, the captain's nonchalance beginning to gall him. "That's the trouble."
"What deserters?" the captain asked.
"From your regiment, most likely."
"We don't have any deserters that I know of."
Greer scowled, but the captain appeared not to notice. Greer started over from the beginning. In the distance, he could hear the sound of the train—his train — receding and finally being lost in the noise made by the nearby Patapsco as it gurgled over the rocky riverbed.
"Someone took our train," he said. "If you send ten men with me, I'm sure before long we'll find the train stopped down the tracks a mile or two from here, and your boys can arrest— "
The captain held up a gloved hand. "That train is your concern."
"But deserters— "
The captain wheeled his mare and started back toward the station. He called back over his shoulder: "Maybe deserters took your train, but they weren't ours. It's none of my concern."
Greer cursed as the captain rode off. He couldn't believe the officer wouldn't help. Someone had stolen the train, and the captain didn't give a damn. With officers like that, no wonder it was taking so long to win the war. He was just like all the rest of the fools back at First Bull Run who had gotten him wounded and then lost the battle.