Loe raamatut: «The Starbuck Chronicles: The Complete 4-Book Collection», lehekülg 10

SIX

IT BEGAN TO RAIN as the train clanked and hissed to a full halt with the locomotive’s great skirtlike cowcatcher just twenty paces from the gap that Truslow had torn in the rails. The smoke from the high and bulbous funnel was whipped in the rainy wind toward the river. Steam hissed momentarily from a valve, then the locomotive’s two engineers were chivied out of their cab by one of Truslow’s men.

Starbuck had already returned to the bridge to shout down the news of the train to the Colonel who, standing beside the stream sixty feet below, demanded to know why the appearance of a train should delay the bridge’s destruction. Starbuck had no good answer. ‘Tell Hinton to come back across the bridge now!’ Faulconer cupped his hands to shout the order up to Starbuck. He sounded angry. ‘You hear me, Nate? I want everyone back now!’

Starbuck edged past the barricade to see the engineers standing with their backs against the locomotive’s huge driving wheels. Captain Hinton was talking to them, but turned as Starbuck approached. ‘Why don’t you go and help Truslow, Nate? He’s working his way forward from the caboose.’

‘The Colonel wants everyone back across the bridge, sir. He sounds kind of urgent.’

‘You go and tell Truslow that,’ Hinton suggested. ‘And I’ll wait for you here.’ The hissing locomotive smelt of woodsmoke, soot and oil. It had a brass-edged nameplate above the forward driving wheel with the name ‘Swiftsure’ cast into the metal. Behind the locomotive was a tender stacked high with cordwood, and beyond the tender four passenger cars, a boxcar and the caboose. Truslow had men inside each car to keep the passengers docile while he went to deal with the guards in the caboose. Those guards had locked themselves in and, as Starbuck started down beside the stalled train, Truslow put his first shots through the caboose’s side.

Some women passengers screamed at the sound of the gunshots. ‘Use your gun if anyone gives you trouble!’ Hinton shouted after Starbuck.

Starbuck had almost forgotten the big twin-triggered Savage revolver that he had carried ever since the day he had ridden to fetch Truslow from the hills. Now he tugged the long barrel free. The cars towered above him, their small furnace chimneys wisping dribbles of smoke into the cold wet wind. Some of the car’s axle boxes were so hot that the rain falling on their metal cases was boiled into instant steam. Passengers watched Starbuck from behind panes of window glass that were streaked with rain and dirt, and their gaze made Nathaniel Starbuck feel oddly heroic. He was dirty, disheveled, unshaven and with long, uncut hair, but under the passengers’ fearful scrutiny he was transformed into a dashing rogue like one of the raiders who galloped the marcher fells in Sir Walter Scott’s books. Behind the train’s dirty window glass lay the respectable, mundane world which, not six months before, Starbuck had inhabited, while out here was discomfort and danger, risk and devilment and so, with a young man’s pride, he strutted before the frightened passengers. A woman put a hand over her mouth, as though shocked to see his face, while a child rubbed a window free of mist just to see Starbuck better. Starbuck waved to the child, who shrank away in fear. ‘You’ll hang for this!’ a man with muttonchop whiskers shouted from an open window, and the angry threat made Starbuck realize that the passengers had mistaken Faulconer’s raiders for common thieves. He found the idea absurdly flattering and laughed aloud. ‘You’ll hang!’ the man shouted, then was told to sit down and shut the hell up by one of the raiders inside the car.

Starbuck reached the caboose just as one of the men inside shouted for Truslow to stop shooting. Truslow, armed with a revolver, had been working his way calmly down the caboose’s side, putting a bullet into every third plank and thus driving the inmates to the very back of the wagon, but now, knowing that the next bullet must surely hit one of them, the men inside shouted their surrender. The rear door opened very cautiously and two middle-aged men, one thin and the other fat, appeared on the caboose’s platform. ‘I ain’t even supposed to be here,’ the fat man wailed at Truslow, ‘I was just taking a ride with Jim here. Don’t shoot me, mister. I got a wife and children!’

‘Key to the boxcar?’ Truslow inquired of the thin man in a very bored voice.

‘Here, mister.’ The thin man, who was uniformed as a guard, held up a heavy ring of keys, then, when Truslow nodded, he tossed it down. The guard, like Truslow, gave the impression of having been through the whole performance before.

‘What’s in the housecar?’ Truslow demanded.

‘Nothing much. Mostly hardware. Some white lead.’ The guard shrugged.

‘I’ll have a look anyways,’ Truslow said, ‘so both you boys come on down.’ Truslow was very calm. He even thrust his empty revolver into his belt as the two men climbed down to the stones of the railbed. ‘Hold your hands up. High,’ Truslow ordered, then nodded at Starbuck. ‘Search them. You’re looking for guns.’

‘I left mine inside!’ the guard said.

‘Search ’em, boy,’ Truslow insisted.

Starbuck found it embarrassing to stand so close that he could smell the fat man’s terror. The fat man had a cheap gilt watch chain thick with seals stretched across his belly. ‘Take the watch, sir,’ he said when Starbuck’s hand brushed against the seals, ‘go on, sir, take it, sir, please.’ Starbuck left the watch alone. A pulse in the man’s neck fluttered wildly as Starbuck emptied his pockets. There was a flask, a cigar case, two handkerchiefs, a tinder box, a handful of coins and a pocket book.

‘No guns,’ Starbuck said when he was finished with both men.

Truslow nodded. ‘Any soldiers where you boys come from?’

The two men paused, almost as if they were preparing to lie, then the guard nodded. ‘There’s a whole bunch of ’em ’bout ten mile back. Maybe a hundred horse soldiers from Ohio? They said how they was expecting rebels.’ He paused, frowning. ‘Are you rebels?’

‘Just plain rail thieves,’ Truslow said, then paused to jet a stream of tobacco juice onto the ties. ‘Now you walk back to those soldiers, boys.’

‘Walk?’ the fat man said, aghast.

‘Walk,’ Truslow insisted, ‘and don’t look back or we’ll start shooting. Walk between the rails, walk real slow, and just keep going. I’m watching you real good. Start now!’

The two men began walking. Truslow waited till they were out of earshot, then spat again. ‘Sounds like someone knew we were coming.’

‘I told no one,’ Starbuck said defensively.

‘I never said you did, never thought you did. Hell, the Colonel’s been talking about this raid for days! It’s just amazing there ain’t half the U.S. Army waiting for us.’ Truslow climbed up into the caboose and disappeared into its dark interior. ‘Mind you,’ he went on, speaking from inside the wagon, ‘there are men who think you’re a spy. Just ’cos you’re a Yankee.’

‘Who says that?’

‘Just men. And it ain’t anything to worry you. They’ve got nothing else to talk about and so they wonder what in hell’s name a Yankee’s doing in a Virginia regiment. You want some coffee off the stove here? It’s warm. Ain’t hot, just warm.’

‘No.’ Starbuck was offended that his loyalty had been so impugned.

Truslow reappeared on the back platform with the guard’s discarded pistol and a tin mug of coffee. He checked that the gun was loaded then drained the coffee before jumping down to the track. ‘Right. Now we go and search the passenger cars.’

‘Shouldn’t we leave?’ Starbuck suggested.

‘Leave?’ Truslow frowned. ‘Why the hell would we want to leave? We just got the son of a bitch train stopped.’

‘The Colonel wants us to go. He’s ready to blow the bridge.’

‘The Colonel can wait,’ Truslow said, then gestured Starbuck toward the passenger cars. ‘We’ll start with the last car. If any bastard gives us trouble, shoot him. If any women or kids start screaming, slap them down fast. Passengers are like hens. Once you get ’em flustered they’re noisy as hell, but treat ’em tough and they’ll stay nice and quiet. And don’t take any big stuff, because we’ve got to ride fast. Money, jewelry and watches, that’s what we’re after.’

Starbuck stood stock still. ‘You’re not robbing the passengers!’ He was genuinely shocked at the thought. It was one thing to stride down the train like a freebooter under the gaze of awestruck passengers, but quite another to break the Sixth Commandment. The worst beatings Starbuck had ever taken had been as punishments for theft. When he was four he had helped himself to some almonds from a jar in the kitchen, and two years later he had taken a toy wooden boat from his elder brother’s toy chest, and both times the Reverend Elial had drawn blood for a recompense. From that day until Dominique had persuaded him to take Major Trabell’s money, Starbuck had been terrified of theft, and the consequences of helping Dominique had only reinforced his childhood lessons that thieving was a terrible crime which God would surely punish. ‘You can’t steal,’ he told Truslow. ‘You can’t.’

‘You expect me to buy their belongings off them?’ Truslow asked mockingly. ‘Now come on, don’t lag.’

‘I’m not helping you steal!’ Starbuck stood his ground. He had sinned so much in these last weeks. He had committed the sin of lust, he had drunk ardent spirits, he had made a wager, he had failed to honor his father and mother and he had failed to keep the Sabbath Day holy, but he would not become a thief. He had only helped Dominique steal because she had persuaded him that the money was owed to her, but he would not help Truslow steal from innocent train passengers. So much of sin seemed nebulous and hard to avoid, but theft was an absolute and undeniable sin, and Starbuck would not risk the slippery path to hell by adding that transgression to his woefully long list of wrongdoings.

Truslow suddenly laughed. ‘I keep forgetting you’re a preacherman. Or half a preacherman.’ He tossed Starbuck the ring of keys. ‘One of those will open the boxcar. Get inside, search it. You don’t have to steal anything’—the sarcasm was heavy—‘but you can look for military supplies and if you see anything else worth stealing, you can tell me about it. And take this.’ Truslow whipped his enormous bowie knife from its scabbard and tossed it to Starbuck.

Starbuck missed the catch, but retrieved the clumsy blade from the railbed. ‘What’s it for?’

‘It’s for cutting throats, boy, but you can use it for opening boxes. Unless you were planning on using your teeth to get into the crates?’

The heavy brass padlock on the boxcar’s sliding door was a good ten feet above the railbed, but a rusted iron stirrup suggested how Starbuck could reach the lock. He pulled himself up and clung precariously to the hasp as he fiddled with the keys. He eventually found the right one, unlocked and slid the heavy door aside, then stepped inside.

The wagon was filled with boxes and sacks. The sacks were more easily opened than the crates and proved to hold seed, though Starbuck had no idea what kind of seed. He trickled the grains through his fingers, then gaped up at the stacked boxes and wondered how he was ever to search them all. The easiest way would have been to hurl the boxes out onto the ground, but the boxes were probably private property and he did not want to risk breaking anything. Most of the crates were marked for collection at either the Baltimore or Washington depot, proof that the occupation of Harper’s Ferry had not entirely closed Federal traffic through the mountains. One of the crates marked for Washington was a dark-painted box that bore a stenciled and misspelled legend on its side: ‘1000 Rifle Musket 69IN Cartridgs.’

That at least had to be war material, and thus fair plunder. He used the clumsy bowie knife to cut the ropes that had tethered the stacks in place, then began shifting the obstructing crates onto the sacks of seed. It took him the best part of five minutes to reach the dark-painted crate and still more time to lever the well-nailed lid off the heavy box to discover that it was indeed packed with paper cartridges, each one containing a bullet and a measure of powder. Starbuck did his best to hammer the lid back into place, then manhandled the box down to the ground. It was still raining, so he thumped the lid with the heel of his right boot, trying to bang the top down tight and thus keep out the rain.

There was another dark-painted box under a second stack and so he climbed back into the boxcar and moved still more crates until he had excavated the second box which, like the first, bore a stenciled legend denoting that its contents were also cartridges. He added that box to the first, then climbed back inside to continue his laborious search.

‘What in hell’s name are you doing, boy?’ Truslow appeared at the boxcar door. He was carrying a heavy leather bag in his right hand and the guard’s pistol in his left.

‘Those are cartridges’—Starbuck gestured at the two boxes beside Truslow—‘and I think there might be more in here.’

Truslow kicked the lid off the nearest box, looked down, then spat tobacco juice over the cartridges. ‘No more use than tits on a bull.’

‘What?’

‘They’re point six nines like I used in Mexico. The rifles the Colonel bought in Richmond are five eights.’

‘Oh.’ Starbuck felt himself coloring with embarrassment.

‘You could light a fire with these?’ Truslow suggested.

‘So they’re no use?’

‘Not to us, boy.’ Truslow shoved the revolver into his belt then picked up one of the cartridges and bit off its bullet. ‘Big son of a bitch, ain’t she?’ He showed Starbuck the bullet. ‘Anything valuable in there?’

‘I’ve only found the bullets so far.’

‘Jesus wept, boy.’ Truslow dropped the heavy leather bag which chinked ominously as it fell, then clambercd into the boxcar and seized the bowie knife from Starbuck. ‘I’ve got to get our boys out of the cars before the passengers get ideas. I took as many guns as I could, but some of those sons of bitches will have kept them well hid. There’s always some bastard who wants to be a hero. I remember a young fellow on the Orange and Alexandria couple of years ago. Thought he would capture me.’ He spat in derision.

‘What happened?’

‘He finished his journey in the caboose, boy. Flat on his back and covered with a tarpaulin.’ As Truslow spoke he wrenched lids off crates, gave the contents a cursory glance, then hurled them out into the rain. A box of china plates decorated with painted lilies smashed itself on the railbed. A clothes mangle followed, then a crate of tin saucepans and a consignment of delicate gas mantles. It had begun to rain more heavily, the drops pattering loud on the boxcar’s wooden roof.

‘Shouldn’t we be leaving?’ Starbuck asked nervously.

‘Why?’

‘I told you. Colonel Faulconer’s ready to blow the bridge up.’

‘Who cares about the bridge? How long do you think it will take to rebuild it?’

‘The Colonel says months.’

‘Months!’ Truslow was raking through a box of clothes, seeing if anything took his fancy. He decided nothing did and hurled the box out into the weather. ‘I could rebuild that trestle in a week. Give me ten men and I’ll have it up and working in two days. Faulconer don’t know goose shit from gold dust, boy.’ He jettisoned a barrel of soda and another of clearing starch. ‘There’s nothing here,’ he sniffed, then clambered back to the ground. He glanced west, but the landscape was empty. ‘Go to the caboose, boy,’ he ordered Starbuck, ‘and bring me some hot coals.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Thinking that if you ask me another goddamned question I’ll shoot you. Now go and get me some damned coals.’ Truslow upended both boxes of .69 cartridges into the boxcar while Starbuck climbed into the caboose where a small pot-bellied stove still burned. There was a zinc bucket of coal beside the stove. He tipped the coal out, used a poker to open the stove’s door, then raked a handful of the glowing lumps into the empty bucket.

‘Right,’ Truslow said when Starbuck got back. ‘Throw the coals onto the cartridges.’

‘You’re going to burn the wagon?’ The rain hissed as it fell into the bucket.

‘For the Lord’s sake!’ Truslow grabbed the bucket and chucked the coals onto the spilt cartridges. For a second the coals just glowed among the paper tubes, then the first cartridge exploded with a soft cough and suddenly the whole pile of ammunition was a blazing, exploding, twisting mass of fire.

Truslow picked up his leather bag of loot, then beckoned Starbuck away. ‘Come on!’ Truslow shouted up to the two men he had left in the rear passenger car.

As the guards left each car they warned the passengers that anyone following the raiders would be shot. Most of those raiders were burdened with bags or sacks, and all had the looks of men well satisfied with their work. Some walked backward with drawn pistols to make certain that none of the passengers tried to be heroic. ‘The trouble’s going to come when we’re past the barricade,’ Truslow warned. ‘Tom? Micky? You hang back with me. Captain Hinton! Get the engineers aboard!’

Hinton chivied the two engineers back into their locomotive’s cabin, then followed with his drawn revolver. A second later the great machine gave an enormous hiss of steam, a gigantic clank, and suddenly the whole train jerked forward. A woman in one of the passenger cars screamed. The boxcar was well ablaze now, spewing black smoke into the driving sheets of rain.

‘Go on!’ Truslow shouted encouragement to Captain Hinton.

The locomotive clanked forward, its funnel giving off small and urgent puffs of gray-white smoke. A black soot smut, hot and sudden, landed on Starbuck’s cheek. Hinton was grinning, shouting at the engineer who must have suddenly opened his throttle because the train jerked forward off the rail ends and shoved its cowcatcher deep into the bed. Stones and timber shattered apart. The four drive wheels, each one nearly six foot in diameter, began spinning and shrieking, but they found just enough traction so that, inch by agonizing inch, the monstrous machine shuddered forward as its small front wheels tore up the broken ties. The cowcatcher crumpled in a screech of tearing metal.

Hinton gestured with his revolver and the engineer opened the throttle full and the thirty-ton locomotive lurched forward like a great wounded beast as it toppled a few degrees sideways. Starbuck feared it was about to plunge down the river’s bank, dragging its full cars behind, but then, mercifully, the huge machine stuck fast. Steam began to jet from its farther side. One of its small front wheels spun free above the churned dirt while the drive wheels on the farther side of the engine churned a foot-deep trench into the railbed before the engineer disconnected the pistons and more steam slashed out into the rain.

‘Set the tender ablaze!’ Truslow yelled and Hinton ordered one of the engineers to take a shovel load of red-hot timbers from the firebox and thrust it deep into the tender’s cordwood. ‘More!’ Truslow urged, ‘more!’ Truslow had found the venting faucet for the tender’s water storage tank and turned it on. Water poured out of one end of the tender while the other began to blaze as fiercely as the burning boxcar.

‘Go!’ Truslow shouted, ‘go!’

The raiders pushed past the barricade and ran toward the bridge. Truslow stayed with two men to guard against any pursuit as Captain Hinton led the others across the narrow planks laid beside the rails on the trestles. Colonel Faulconer was waiting on the farther bank and shouting at Hinton’s men to hurry. ‘Light the fires! Medlicott!’ Faulconer called down into the gorge. ‘Hurry!’ Faulconer shouted at Hinton. ‘For God’s sake! What held you up?’

‘Had to make sure the train didn’t go back for help,’ Captain Hinton said.

‘No one obeys orders here!’ The Colonel had given the order to withdraw at least a quarter hour before and every second of the delay had been an insult to his already fragile authority. ‘Starbuck!’ he shouted. ‘Didn’t I order you to bring the men back?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then why didn’t you?’

‘My fault, Faulconer,’ Hinton intervened.

‘I gave you an order, Nate!’ the Colonel shouted. His other men were already mounted, all but for Medlicott, who had struck a light to the mass of combustibles about the trestle leg. ‘Now the fuse!’ the Colonel shouted.

‘Truslow!’ Captain Hinton bellowed at the three men left on the far side of the gorge.

Truslow, the leather bag in his hand, was the last man away from the barricade. As he crossed the bridge he kicked the planks aside, making pursuit difficult. A gun was fired from the far barricade, the smoke of its powder snatched instantly away by the breeze. The bullet struck a rail on the bridge and whined off across the river. Two dense plumes of smoke from the burning boxcar and tender were drifting low and acrid above the North Branch.

‘Fuse is lit!’ Medlicott shouted and began clawing his way up the gorge’s side. Behind him a dribble of smoke spat and writhed from the lit fuse as it snaked down the slope toward the great heap of timber and brush stacked about the gunpowder.

‘Hurry!’ the Colonel shouted. A horse whinnied and reared. More men fired from the barricade, but Truslow was across the bridge now and well out of effective revolver range. ‘Come on, man!’ Washington Faulconer shouted. Truslow still had his leather bag, just as all Hinton’s men had similar bags. Faulconer must have known from the heavy bags why his order to withdraw had been so long ignored, but he chose to say nothing. Sergeant Medlicott, muddy and damp, scrambled out of the gorge and fumbled for his stirrup just as the smoking fuse darted into the pile of brush. Sergeant Truslow hauled himself into his saddle, and Faulconer turned away. ‘Let’s go!’ He led his men off the railroad’s embankment. The fire in the gorge had to be quickening, for thick smoke was writhing about the trestle’s lattice, though the gunpowder had still not exploded. ‘Come on!’ Faulconer urged, and behind him the horses scrambled and slipped on the muddy slope until, at last, they were concealed from the train by foliage and, though a few random bullets ripped through the leaves and twigs, none of the Legion’s men was hit.