Fortunately, Hudson had managed to surprise and overpower the guards when the raiders seized the train. While it was convenient that the raiders had removed one of the obstacles in stealing the money, they had created a much bigger problem in that the thieves would be expecting a trio of sleepy Union guards, not a train carrying several trigger-happy Rebels. The thought was enough to make Flynn smile.
"What was your original plan?" he asked, wondering how much of the truth Nellie would actually tell him. "What were you and Gilmore going to do before things… changed?"
“You mean, before you killed him?”
“That’s not quite how I would have put it.”
Nellie hesitated, then shrugged, as if deciding there wasn't any reason not to tell him. "Our friends are going to stop the train well outside of Cumberland by putting some trees across the tracks," she said. "When the train stops, the plan is to rush aboard and take the payroll money."
"What about the guards? They wouldn’t have let you walk off the train with all that money without a fight.”
"They would have been outnumbered," she said. "Me and Charlie, our job was to help from the inside, any way we could. Then we would ride off with the gang."
"You would have been caught in no time at all, in the mountains," Flynn said, impressed in spite of himself. It was quite a scheme.
Nellie shook her head. "There's one or two with us who know the mountain roads like they know the laces on their boots. Nobody would ever find us. We would be long-gone."
"Back to Baltimore?"
"Why not?"
Flynn nodded. It was a good enough plan, except it wouldn't work now. "You know that if your friends stop this train then all hell's going to break loose?"
Nellie nodded. "There's got to be another way."
"We'll figure something out, even if we have to throw the money out the window and come back for it later.”
Captain Fletcher entered the car and Flynn gave Nellie a wink that ended their conversation. Fletcher walked over and looked down at Lieutenant Cater, who still lay unconscious on the floor. "Well, Flynn, is he going to make it?"
"He's a strong lad." Flynn refused to address Captain Fletcher as sir. "There's not much more we can do for him aboard this train — except pray."
"You realize that with him wounded, I'm second in command of this raid."
Flynn crossed himself.
"What are you doing?"
"Praying," Flynn said. "Praying for the lad's life."
Fletcher scowled and stalked off.
"That man's a fool," Nellie whispered.
"Oh, he has his purpose in life, just like rats and snakes. He fetches and carries well enough back in Richmond, licks boots and kisses arses. He's a natural-born staff officer, but he's no soldier."
The train lurched, then began to creep ahead. The cars felt strangely empty without the civilians. Outside the windows, trees began to pass by as the Chesapeake gathered speed. The passengers they had put off stood along the tracks, watching the train roll west.
“You’ll notice they didn’t wave,” Flynn said. "We're on our way, lass."
"Stop calling me 'lass,' Irish. My name is Nellie. Miss Jones, to be proper.”
Flynn smiled. Between the two of them, they just might manage to steal the money, after all. But doubts nagged at Flynn. The cargo they carried was so precious: a fortune in cash, the Yankee president, the hopes of the entire Confederacy. Their odds of success were long, indeed. They still had to cross Maryland and the state was crawling with blue-coated soldiers.
“You have spirit, Miss Jones. I like that. And you’ll need it before this day is through. Right now, we’re like a couple of rats trying to run the length of an alley filled with stray cats. That’s us, all right, little gray rats in an alley.”
"Now what do we do?" Mrs. Henrietta Parker wondered out loud, a plaintive not in her voice. She paced up and down beside the tracks, hands on her hips, looking for all the world like a plump, rumpled, very angry hen. "Those Rebels abandoned us to the elements!"
"Henrietta— "
"Be quiet, Alfred! The least you and the other men on this train could have done is stand up to them."
"They had guns," Alfred pointed out. "And from what we saw, they did not hesitate to use them."
"Thieves and murderers," she said. "How dare they call themselves soldiers. Why, my honor felt threatened."
Nearby, James Prescott put his hand to his face to hide a smile. It was highly unlikely, he thought, that the raiders would have stormed the formidable fortress that was Mrs. Henrietta Parker.
The woman who had stayed aboard the train was another matter. He thought it highly imprudent for her to ride along. That attractive young lady was far more likely to find her honor threatened than was Mrs. Parker, he decided. He was a little surprised she had cast in with the train thieves, considering they had killed her traveling companion. Maybe she truly was a Rebel sympathizer. Baltimore was full of them. Then again, she appeared to be a woman who could take care of herself. She looked as if she welcomed adventure.
Did he? Not really. The truth was, he was glad they were no longer on the train, wondering from one minute to the next if the raiders would shoot them. He realized now how stupid he and Gilmore had been in trying to overpower the Rebel sergeant and the young soldier. Even if they had succeeded, what then? Prescott knew he was lucky to be alive, considering what had happened to Gilmore. The man had paid for their foolishness with his life.
In spite of all that, Prescott felt some pangs of regret as he watched the train disappear. There went an adventure, he thought, going on without him. Somehow, the fact that the young woman had chosen to ride the train while he had been eager to get off made him feel like less of a man.
A shout interrupted his thoughts. "Look!" someone cried. "There's smoke on the horizon. Must be a train coming."
"Flag it down!"
"No, no, no," Mrs. Parker sputtered. "It could be the Rebels coming back! Alfred, tell them, tell them!"
"Shut up, Henrietta," Alfred said wearily. "The Rebels are not coming back this way. Now get over here and start waving."
Prescott joined the group that pressed up to the tracks. Some of the men took off their coats and flapped them up and down, the better to catch the engineer's attention. Prescott thought it unlikely the engineer wouldn't notice a crowd of people standing along the tracks in the middle of nowhere.
He could see it now, too, a column of smoke approaching from the west. Well, he thought, maybe the adventure wasn't over quite yet. He made up his mind that he was going along for the chase, if there was one.
Percy took out his Colt revolver and double-checked to make certain it was loaded. It was a soldier's nervous habit. Any veteran knew his life depended upon the proper functioning of his weapons.
From the looks of things, he might soon need his revolver. He squinted into the distance, where he could just make out the fast-approaching column of smoke that heralded an oncoming train. Percy had no way of knowing if the other train was simply headed east to Baltimore or whether it was loaded with Yankee soldiers intent on stopping the raiders.
"At least we're moving, sir," said Cephas Wilson, the engineer, as if reading Percy's mind.
"If they try to flag us down, don't stop," Percy said. "They can chase us if they want, but we're not going to make it easy for them."
Wilson started to ask a question, then seemed to think better of it. "What about the president, sir?"