One of the deserters must have had some knowledge of trains to keep the Chesapeake running this far. Still, at any moment, Greer expected to come across the train stopped on the tracks. He braced himself to deal with the irate passengers who would be spilling out from the cars, wondering what had happened.
The train thieves would be long-gone, and Greer would have to back the Chesapeake the few miles into town to pick up the passengers left behind at Sykes's Hotel. The incident would be embarrassing, but not disastrous.
They ran another mile, but there was no train. Not even a sign of the Chesapeake. No screech ahead of wheels on iron rails. No plume of smoke above the treetops. The train had vanished.
"Bastards," Greer cursed the thieves. He was sure the owners of the B&O Railroad might just be inclined to fire a train crew who had allowed a locomotive and several cars to be stolen, all because they had stopped for breakfast. “Why would they take my train?”
“Payroll money,” panted Frost, struggling to keep up. “Must have been several thousand dollars in that baggage car.”
Greer dismissed the idea. “If thieves wanted the payroll money, it stands to reason they would have taken the money, not the entire train,” he said. “Besides, the baggage car had been well-guarded.”
It never occurred to any of them that the last car, mysteriously attached to the train during the night, had anything to do with the morning's events.
“Whatever the reason, the directors of the B&O Railroad aren’t going to be happy about what had happened,” he added.
Anger gave him new strength and he ran faster, determined to find the Chesapeake. He knew it was the only hope of redemption he, Schmidt and Frost had.
"Nobody steals my goddamn train," he panted.
"For pity's sake, Greer," Schmidt gasped, sounding close to collapse. "I can't keep this up much longer."
"Shut up and run," Greer growled.
Chapter 12
A few miles up the tracks, the Chesapeake was coming to a halt, not because it had run out of steam, but because Colonel Percy had ordered it. The train crept across the Washington Road and stopped.
"Keep her under steam," Percy told Wilson. "We'll only be here a few minutes, just long enough to cut the telegraph wires."
Percy jumped down from the locomotive and ran back to the cars. He was anxious to get as far as possible before there was any sign of pursuit, but he hoped cutting the wires would increase their chances of escape. Several of the raiders were leaning out the windows to see what was going on.
"Keep one man in each car to guard the passengers and the rest of you get down here," Percy shouted. "We have work to do. Forbes! Where the hell are you?"
A head appeared in a window. "Here, sir!"
"Get out here. I have a job for you."
The raiders quickly jumped down and gathered near the locomotive. Lieutenant Cater came running up from the last car, the one that held Lincoln, but Percy waved him back.
"All right, boys, we're going to do two things while we're stopped — cut the telegraph wires and pull up a couple of rails in case the Yankees send a train after us. First, I want to know how the passengers are behaving."
Flynn spoke up. "Well, sir, we had to shoot two of them."
Percy blinked in surprise. "Dead?"
"Yes, sir. I got one and the lad got the other."
"I hope you had good reason."
"They hauled out guns and decided they weren't going to put up with the likes of us. They were Yankee veterans, Colonel, acting brave."
Percy nodded. Nearby, Hazlett sneered, as if Flynn had failed somehow.
"All right," Percy said bitterly. "What's done is done. Let's try not to shoot anyone else. I hadn't counted on there being so many people on board."
"They look just like cattle," Hazlett muttered in disgust, staring back at the passengers watching from the windows.
Percy wasn't finished. He turned to Flynn with a steely glare. "And I better not catch you drinking any goddamn whiskey, Flynn. You sure as hell set off that conductor back there — you could have put us all in danger. I know you were sent to keep an eye on me, Sergeant, but I'm in command of this raid, and you'll do as I tell you."
"I hear you."
That was as good a dressing down as he'd ever had in his previous short career as a soldier. Flynn realized he still had the whiskey bottle in his coat pocket, and he pulled it out and pitched it away. He knew trying to explain to Percy how the bottle had ended up in his pocket was pointless. Flynn glanced at Hazlett, and noticed the sergeant was grinning.
Forbes watched with greedy eyes as the bottle landed with a thud in the bushes, unbroken.
"We could put all the passengers off right here, sir," Pettibone suggested.
"They would have the Yankees onto us in no time," Flynn said. "This is a settled area and we're sitting on one of the major roads out of Washington City. There's another road just three miles south of here that carries all the traffic going west out of Baltimore. Cavalry passes all the time on both these roads."
"Flynn's right," Percy said. "Nobody but the passengers knows who we are, so let's keep it that way for a while."
"We could just let Flynn shoot them," Hazlett said. His gap-toothed smile made him look more wicked than usual.
Percy ignored him. "Let's get moving. If Flynn's right about this road we don't want to meet any soldiers, so the less time spent sitting here, the better. Forbes, borrow that big Bowie knife off Hazlett and cut the wires on those poles." Percy pointed out the two sets of telegraph wires, one running east-west, the other north-south. "Cut the one going west first, since that's the way we're going. Pettibone, you help him. The rest of us are going to pull up some rails."
"With what?" Flynn asked.
"With … hell, I don't know. Our fingers if we have to." Percy turned toward the engine and shouted, "Wilson, you got and pry bars in there?"
The engineer bent down, reappeared with a hammer in his hand. "That's all there is, Colonel. This and some small tools for the locomotive."
Percy swore. Wrenching an iron rail free of the cross ties was no easy task, especially without a pry bar to give a man leverage. "This is a fine time to be thinking about tools."
"Let's just cut the wires and be gone," Flynn said. "Otherwise we'll only be wasting time. All we have to pull up those rails is rocks and our hands, and that's not enough. Trust me, Colonel. I've put a few rails down in my time so I know something about pulling them up."
Forbes and Pettibone went off to cut the telegraph wires. Forbes was a slightly built man, no more than five-feet, five-inches tall and 110 pounds. Perfect size for a cavalryman, and even better for shimmying up telegraph poles.
Percy turned to Hazlett. "Sergeant, you keep an eye out up and down this road for any Yankee cavalry. No shooting, if you can help it."
"Yes, sir. I'll shout if I see anyone." He looked toward the dirt road which climbed steeply on both sides of the river. "There should be enough dust to give us fair warning."
"Good. Flynn, you come with me."
Together, Flynn and the colonel started down the length of the train. Both men were aware of the passengers watching them out the windows.
"How's Benjamin holding up?" Percy asked.
"He's a bit green to this sort of work, but he'll be all right."
"That's why I put him with you." Percy seemed to have forgotten all about reprimanding Flynn over the whiskey.