Ben stood up and grabbed the towel. He watched Isaac have his way with one girl while he wiped off.
“Well, it’s not what I hoped, but you’ll do.” Ben took the other girl to bed and had his way with her.
When the two men were done the women got up, got dressed, and left the room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Friday, July 3, 1863
Mike, Ray, and PT were catching their breath after getting into the boxcar.
“Thanks, George, for helping me get aboard. How’d you know it was me?” Mike said.
“I recognized your voice,” George said.
“Yeah, George glad to see you made it. I thought you were a goner for sure,” Ray said.
“I see your family is with you,” Mike said.
“Yes, sir, Mister Mike.”
“How’d you get here? I mean, on the train?”
“Well, sir, Miss Sarah and Miss Jenny started a fight between the men that took us and allowed us to get away. But we took the wrong train. It was going south and we needed to go north. When we got into the swamp, we jumped off that train and then caught the next train going the other way.”
“I’ll be. Do you know what happened to Sarah and Jenny?”
“You know this darky?” PT interrupted.
“How about it, George? Do you know where they took them?”
“No sir. I don’t,” George said.
“Please tell me you own them,” PT asked.
“Hell no. I don’t own anyone,” Mike said.
“You dumb sons-a-bitches. We’re in the heart of Yankeedom. You know what will happen to us if’n were caught with them?”
“What?” Ray asked.
“They’ll hang us for sure. Aiding and abetting runaway slaves.”
“Let’s not get caught, then,” Mike said.
PT calmed down. There was nothing he could do about it anyway. They were all stuck there and along for the ride. “Reunion in a boxcar,” PT mumbled as he shook his head in disbelief.
“Thank You Mister, Mike. You were always real nice to me and my family.”
“Would you like something to eat?”
“What do you have?” Ray asked before Mike could refuse.
“Well let me see.” George rummaged through his haversack. “I have one more can of... what’s that say Valerie?”
George handed the can to his daughter.
“Van-Camp Pork-n-beans,” Valerie read.
George took the can from Valerie and pulled out a small knife. He jabbed and rocked the knife back and forth around the top edge of the can. Then pealed the lid open and handed it to Mike.
“Thanks, George. Valerie reads very well.”
“The missy we had would sneak in books for her at night.” George told Mike as he handed him a fork.
Mike took the first taste. Then handed the can to Ray.
After Ray took a few forkfuls, he handed it back to Mike. They didn’t offer any to PT and being ignored seemed to piss him off a bit.
“I don’t believe a decent dog would eat that,” PT said bitterly.
“You ain’t eating it. We are,” Mike said. Then he had second thoughts after seeing PT frown and withdrawn.
“If you behave we’ll let you have the rest,” Mike said.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I just don’t think it’s healthy for us to be traveling with Negros in these parts.”
“Really.” Mike handed him what was left.
PT ate the rest of the pork-n-beans.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Mike said.
“So who is these two young ladies?” PT asked George.
“This here is my wife, Anita, and my daughter, Valerie.”
“Pleased to meet you,” PT said.
The train chugged along mile after mile in the darkness. The boxcar swayed back and forth for a long while and then it slowed to a crawl when the train approached a small village or town. It went slowly past the wooden station platform, but never stopped.
When the sun rose over the rolling hills of Maryland, they saw the weather-beaten wooden platforms they passed when they went through towns.
Suddenly, a man jumped in the doorway of the boxcar. He was hanging half in and half out. He was yelling undiscernible words and phrases.
“Don’t let him in here,” George yelled.
Mike got up and ran to him, but before he could determine whether or not to help him, George pushed him off.
As the man rolled down the embankment Mike looked down the train and saw more hobos and tramps jump aboard other boxcars. Mike thought a moment and then slid the door completely shut.
“Why don’t the train stop?” Ray asked.
“The train is a freight, not a passenger,” PT said.
Then the train’s whistle started to blow and the train slowed. PT slid the door open and looked outside.
“We’re approaching Camden Street Station in Baltimore.”
“What makes you think that?” Mike asked.
“The hobos are jumping from the train. We better do the same,” PT said.
“After you,” Mike said.
George and his family gathered their stuff in a bag and met Mike at the door.
“Jump!” Mike yelled.
When the train was at a crawl, they all jumped. To Mike’s delight, nobody got hurt. PT walked toward the street. “Need to know where we are, first off.”
Standing by the water, Mike saw a street sign. “Russell Street. Mean anything to you, PT?”
“As a matter of fact, it does. It does indeed.”
They walked up to Pratt Street and stopped.
“Here’s where we need to part George, take your family down Pratt Street in that direction. That’ll take you to the President Station. From there you can catch the train. Make sure it’s going north,” PT explained.
Still anxious to find Sarah and Jenny, Mike agreed. “Are you good with that, George?”
George repeated PT’s words and gestured that he was good. Mike shook his hand.
“God speed, George. Take care of that family of yours,” Mike said.
Ray also shook his hand and said, “Thanks and good luck, George. Take care.”
PT looked George in the eye and said, “Sorry about what I said back there.”
“It’s just the way it is. I understand,” George said.
As they walked down Pratt Street, they heard loud noises of the train cars coupling. They were walking beside the tracks that led to Mount Clare Station. Steam locomotives moved past them into the yard. They smelled kerosene and grease.
The morning was coming alive with people getting to work. Businessmen wearing derby hats and dressed in a variety of colored suits hurried down the sidewalks, to open up their shops. They walked to the corner of Pratt and Parkin Streets, where PT stopped. He looked at the sign post then at Mike and Ray. “We make a right here.”
Mike turned to PT. “So where is this place you’re taking us?”
“Not far, you’ll see.”
“You said that about the swamp,” Mike said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Friday, July 3, 1863
A foghorn sounded in the distance as Mike, Ray, and PT followed the cobblestones of Pratt Street to the west. The B&O railroad tracks were to their left and the red brick buildings that made up the hotels and restaurants were on their right. Then PT made a right on Parkin Street.
The smells of the city were a mixture of creosote, garbage, and sewage, with a blend of horse manure and wood burning stoves.
They followed Parkin north to Hollins Street and found themselves in front of the B&O train workshop.
“Why did you bring us here?” Mike asked.
“Around back,” PT said. He and led them down Hollins to an alley and walked up the alley to Baltimore Street. He walked about 100 feet east and stopped at the back door of the shop. Overhead was a sign: “Winan’s Foundry and Machine Workshop.” PT rang the bell.
�
�I’ll be damned,” Mike said.
“This is where I get paid,” PT said.
Just then the back door opened and out walked an average-built man in railroad attire. The man had black soot all over his face and was wearing an engineer’s dirty blue and white striped hat.
“Hello, Mister Dickinson,” PT said. “I kept my end of the bargain. Now where’s the rest of my money?”
“What took ya so long? You were supposed to be here two days ago?” Dickinson said.
“Hazardous country out there. You’re lucky I got them here at all.”
Mr. Dickinson handed PT a twenty-dollar gold coin.
“Well, boys, this is where I take my leave of you,” PT said, with even a stronger German accent then he had used before. He gave them a salute and started up Baltimore Street.
“So you must be Mike.” Dickinson shook Mike’s hand. “And you must be, Ray.” Shook his hand, as well. “Where’s Gordon?”
“Gordy’s dead,” Mike said.
“What! This is sad news. Sorry to hear that.”
“Look, we’ve been through a lot. Who are you, and why are we here?” Mike asked.
“Well, you’re here now. That’s good. Come in.” The man seemed to talk to himself. He opened the door and smiled, showing his yellow-and-black tobacco-stained teeth. “Come inside, please.”
Mike hesitated. “Who are you?”
“I’m Charles Dickinson. The man that got you here.”
“Why?” Mike asked.
Charles stopped and looked at Mike. Then he smiled. “You know me as ‘Zombie.’”
Mike was astonished. “You’re Zombie?”
“What?” Ray said.
“That’s right.” The man pulled open the door to the workshop and walked inside. Mike and Ray followed him. They were standing in a large area with locomotives lined up. The place was busy with activity. Mike saw men working in the paint shop, the brass and iron foundry, and along the wall was the blacksmith shop. The whole place smelled like waste oil, kerosene, and burning coal. There were men on a platform working on one of the boilers of a locomotive.
Mike recalled the conversation with Gordon about the Winan’s steam gun that Zombie supposedly brought here. He was relieved that his quest for the gun was over, and he was in a hurry to track down Sarah.
“Great, show us the gun and we’ll destroy it. Then I need to find my wife, Sarah.”
“Don’t forget Jenny,” Ray reminded him. He too was all fired up and ready to get started.
“Well, that will take some explaining,” Charles said.
Mike’s relief turned to concern. “What do you mean by that?”
“Please give me a few minutes of your time and let me explain.”
“You do have the gun, right?” Mike asked.
“No,” Charles said.
Ray moaned disheartened.
“What happened?” Mike said.
“You were supposed to be here on July First. You’re two days late. Tom already came and got the gun,” Charles defended himself. He noticed several men walking close by and didn’t want to be overheard. “Let’s go to my office and I’ll give you the particulars.”
Mike was furious, but he did want to know just how the gun changed history.
“Out of all the names, how’d you come up with Zombie?” Ray asked.
“Long story, and we have no time to waste.” Charles led them across the wide floor of the large room.
“Who are you again?” Mike asked, still reeling from the revelations.
Charles came to an office. As he opened the door he said, “I am the co-inventor of the steam cannon we need to stop.”
He hurried them inside the office.
“Now it’s a steam cannon,” Mike said.
When they were all inside, Charles quietly shut the door. “Let me explain.”
“May I have a seat, my leg hurts,” Mike said.
“You okay?” Charles asked.
“Yeah, just fine. Don’t worry about me. Let’s hear the story.”
“It started in Ohio. Another fellow by the name of William Joslin and I built the steam gun. After the gun failed several of our tests, we had a falling out over how to fix it. He came to the conclusion to scrap the project. I couldn’t let that happen. The Confederacy needed a weapon to win the war. So I brought the gun here to continue my work.”
“You’re talking about the legendary Confederate steam gun that was supposed to shoot 400 rounds per minute. That gun?” Mike asked.
“Yes, that gun,” Charles said.
“That’s what we’re supposed to stop?” Ray asked.
“Wait a second, there was an episode on Myth-Busters where they built the steam gun to see if it would really work. It barely passed their tests,” Mike explained.
“So how did you get it to work?” Ray asked.
“I didn’t. I was about to give up on the thing when one day a large man showed up, explaining how he could make it work. He said he was a mechanical engineer from the future and that he had always been interested in the Winan’s steam gun. Well, I thought he was a lunatic.”
“He said he was from the future?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, I didn’t believe him at first either. Until...”
“Wait. What’s his name?” Mike said.
“His name is Tom Treble.”
“I don’t know any Tom Treble? How about you, Ray?”
Ray quivered. “Yeah, I think I do.”
“How?” Mike asked.
“You know him too, by another name,” Ray said.
“What? Who?” Mike said.
“Tree Man.”
“Tree Man? Wait, not that big guy from registration at the Gettysburg reenactment?”
“The same.” Ray said.
“The one that wanted to fight?”
“That’s him.”
Charles continued. “I didn’t believe Tom’s story, that is, until he took me to an old barn in Gettysburg. He read a poem and we found ourselves in the future. He took me to his home town of Baltimore. After seeing what I saw, I was convinced that he could make the gun work.”
“He took you back to our future?” Mike asked.
“Yes. I was in awe of the things he showed me. We went to the Enoch Pratt Library for research. I kept the history book I was reading. Every time I read it, I was amazed. What a world my grandchildren would grow up in. Guess I looked to be in a trance, because Tom gave me that nickname. He said I acted like a Zombie.”
“So what about this gun?” Mike said.
“Tom fixed the steam gun all right. He made it into a cannon, with more destructive power than anyone could ever imagine. One blast from this cannon can knock down whole buildings. That’s what won the war and changed your history.”
Mike leaned toward Charles. “He ruined our future and got my friend Gordy killed.”
“Sorry about your friend, but if we’re to have any chance of stopping the steam cannon and correcting history we need to go right away,” Charles said.
“Where’s the cannon headed?” Mike asked.
“It’s headed for the battle of Big Pipe Creek.”
“There was no battle by that name.”
“When Tom and I changed history. Lee didn’t retreat. He redeployed his army.”
“Go on,” Mike said.
“Meade abandoned the line on the First. Sent them to Gettysburg. Lee went around him and took the ground he had abandoned. By the Fifth, he waited for General Imboden to deliver the steam cannon to Union Mills, the center of the Confederate battle line. When the Union army showed up, they fired the cannon.”
“What happened?” Ray asked.
“The Army of the Potomac basically ceased to exist at that moment, and the Confederacy won the war. And that is why we need to stop that gun.”
“Do you know how?” Mike asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Good. But there’s something I need to do first,” Mike said.
“What�
��s that?” Charles asked.
“I need to find my wife.”
“But we have no time to waste,” Charles said.
“Mike, you even said, if we stop the cannon, we reset the timeline, remember?” Ray said.
“I didn’t bring you here to find your wife. I brought you here to stop that gun,” Charles said.
“I can’t go without my wife,” Mike said.
Mike was overwhelmed. If he looked for Sarah, he might be too late to stop the gun. History wouldn’t be fixed. Gordon would still be dead.
But if he went to stop the gun, he might never see Sarah again. The decision weighed heavily in his heart.
“So what are we going to do, Mike?” Ray asked.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Friday, July 3, 1863
In the wee hours of the morning, Ben was awakened by the assistant. Ben and Isaac got dressed and went downstairs.
The nurse drugged Sarah and Jenny again, allowing the assistant to dress them and put make-up on their faces. They were now ready for the voyage.
The assistant walked them down to the pallor where Ben and Isaac waited for them.
“Don’t they look pretty?” Ben said.
“Yeah, I could have used that last night instead,” Isaac said.
The owner slid open the office window. “Good doing business. Come back anytime. Next time maybe I buy the girls—right, ha, ha.”
“Right,” Ben said to Isaac.
The assistant and the nurse helped Ben and Isaac walk the women out to the gray paddy wagon and place them in the back. Then Ben drove back to the docks.
At the docks, Ben pulled the wagon over and the two men got down. After a few minutes, the Portuguese captain and a few of his men came down the gangplank. Ben and Isaac met them at the end.
“Good morning,” the captain said. “Do you have my merchandise?”
“Yes,” Ben said. “Do you have my money?”
“Sure. That is, if the merchandise is not damaged.”
“Okay. They’re back in the wagon,” Ben said. He turned to walk back to the wagon.
When they were about 20 yards from the wagon, Ben saw a man standing there. Ben’s expression soured.
“Oh, for Christ sakes, is this another marshal?”
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