Dreadnought tcc-3

by Cherie Priest

  “It’s a pleasure,” the captain said without looking remotely surprised about either of these revelations. “Now, what the hell is going on?”

  “Your sweet blond private is dead and draining in the caboose, shot and killed by Purdue, who you don’t appear to have much control over. That little fiend is holed up back there, and I think he’s got orders that come down from a higher rank than yours.”

  In the same unhappy, flat tone, the captain said, “Your assessment of the situation is just about right.”

  “You’ve almost got the Rebs run off, now, haven’t you?”

  The captain didn’t answer for a moment. All three of them were holding still and quiet, listening to the reluctant patter of bullets, fewer and fewer, coming from outside. Finally he said, “I believe that situation is under control, yes.”

  “Good. Because-”

  “Good? Now, you wait here a minute, Ranger Korman. I know damn good and well where your sympathies lie, and I want to know-”

  “No, you listen to me, Captain,” the ranger said, escalating the interruptions. “Right now I’m on the side of whoever can get me to Salt Lake City fastest and safest. For all your talk and bluster of this being a civilian train, we both know that ain’t the case. I’m here on a duty that doesn’t have diddly-squat to do with your war.”

  The captain said, “I can’t say I believe you. Somebody on this train has been sabotaging the ride by bits and pieces, and somebody has been feeding the Rebs information ever since we pulled the civvies on at St. Louis.”

  “And you think it’s me?” Korman asked, patting himself on the chest. “Son,” he said, even though the captain was probably older than him, if only by a few years. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than to slow up a train that I very badly need. And, anyway, you can quit worrying about your spy. He’s dead.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It was Berry, don’t you get it? That boy may have hailed from Ohio, but he had heartstrings that went a lot farther south. You’re just lucky he wasn’t any better at spying. Blame it on his youth, I suppose. Did he know about the gold you’ve got in that next car?”

  MacGruder flung a glare at Mercy, but she folded her arms and ignored it.

  “Of course he knew about it. You saw him in there, propped up on it, shooting out at the meat-baskets and their riders.” But something in his voice betrayed an uncertainty. “At least, I thought he was shooting. Maybe he was picking bats out of the sky. Goddamn.”

  The ranger went on. “Did he know about whatever’s in that back car?”

  “I doubt it. But to think, I just sent him back there, giving him every excuse in the world to bust it open, find out, and spread the word around.”

  Mercy said, “You told me you didn’t know if it was bodies or something stranger. If you ever said such a thing in front of him, he would’ve passed it along, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll tell you what I think, Mrs. Lynch,” the captain said. “Rumor’s had it that you were in league with the Texian all this time. I tried to look the other way-”

  Before he could hard-boil his sentiments into an accusation, she blurted out, “I’m from Virginia. I worked at the Robertson Hospital in Richmond. That’s the only thing I ever lied to you about. My husband was Phillip Lynch, and he died in the Andersonville camp, and I’m on my way to see my daddy.” Though she sat beside him, she slid her legs around so she could face him. “It’s the same for me as Mr. Korman. We just need to get west. Neither one of us would’ve done anything at all to slow this train or harm it. Neither one of us has anything to do with spying.”

  Her words hung in the night-black air. Between the three of them, they gradually realized that no one was shooting anymore, except far away, and in what could only be described as a retreat.

  As one, they rose up and went to the train’s south windows and pressed their faces to the panes where the glass hadn’t broken. Mercy said, with honest relief, “Look, they’re leaving!”

  And Korman said, “Thank God.” Then he turned to the captain and said, “You, and me, and her-” He indicated Mercy. “We’re in this together now.”

  “How you figure?” he asked.

  “Because we’re all three being betrayed by somebody. I know my word won’t mean much, but let me tell you this: I knew one of the boys who led the early raid that didn’t go nowhere. They were just scouting, you knew it the same as I did. But I shot ’im a telegram back in Topeka, trying to get a bead on what’s going on here, and I’m hoping for a response in Denver. As a gesture of good faith, I’m willing to share that with you, and send that fellow a warning to leave the train be.”

  “And why exactly would you do that?”

  The ranger gritted his teeth and said, “All I want to do is get to Salt Lake City. This train will get me there faster than any other, and it’s in my best interest to see it arrive in one piece. Don’t be dense, man. I’m trying to help.”

  The men stared each other down, until Mercy interjected, “Fellas, listen. All God’s children got a job to do here, and all any of us want is to head out west and to mind our own business. But I think we need to mind someone else’s business for a bit.”

  The captain asked, “What do you mean by that?”

  And she said, “I mean, I think we should find out what’s in the back of this train. Because if it’s a bigger secret and something more important than a few tons of gold and a whole passel of land deeds,” she let this information slide casually, “then Mr. Purdue is just about the last man on earth I trust to be in charge of it.”

  “You’re suggesting that I disobey orders.”

  “You were suggesting that Cyrus Berry do the same,” she countered, “when you sent him back there. You want to know; you’re just afraid to find out. But whatever’s back there, Purdue is willing to kill for it-and he’ll kill his way up the chain of command, I bet. Whatever it takes to sneak his treasure up to Boise.”

  In the absence of bullets spitting every which-a-way, the train slowed from its breakneck pace into something more ordinary-not leisurely, but not straining like the engine was gobbling every bit of fuel it could burn, either. The silence that followed, without anyone shooting and without anyone in the passenger car at all, was broken only by the unrelenting wind whistling through the broken patches in the glass.

  But off in the distance-terribly far away, so far that they couldn’t have seen it clearly even if the sun had been out-a tiny glimmer raced along the horizon line. And from that same position, miles and miles away, the cold prairie air brought a rumor of a tune, one long note held high and loud like the call of one train to another.

  Mercy asked, “What’s that?” and pointed, even though they were all looking at the same thing, the same minuscule glowing dot that sailed smooth as a marble along some other path, somewhere far away.

  Horatio Korman adjusted his hat, jamming it farther down on his head to fight the pull of the rushing air, and said, “Unless I miss my guess, Mrs. Lynch, I’d say that’s probably the Shenandoah.”

  Sixteen

  The Dreadnought pulled into Denver early the next morning and parked a few extra hours for repairs. Most of the passengers debarked, all rattled and some crying, with apologies from the Union and vouchers to take other trains to their destinations. Of the original occupants of Mercy’s car, only Theodora Clay and her indomitable aunt Norene Butterfield remained; and of the passengers who’d been present when the meat-baskets made their attack, only about a dozen opted to stick it out. Consequently, the train company would also be abandoning four passenger cars, leaving only three to house the soldiers and remaining scant passengers.

  Those who remained were confined to the train while the repairs were made because the captain was insistent that they must get moving at the first possible instant after the repairs were done. The only exception was Horatio Korman, who was let off his car with the captain’s tacit approval, much to the astonishment and concern of the other e
nlisted men.

  Purdue had stashed himself in the caboose, where he all but lived now. Like the other passengers, he stayed on board while the Denver crews replaced windows, reloaded ammunition bays, refilled boilers, and patched the most conspicuous bullet holes. He sat at that single portal to the train’s very back end and guarded it when he could, and had his right-hand man, Oscar Hayes, keep watch over it when Purdue was occasionally compelled to sleep. Most of the pretense of law and order and chain of command had been abandoned in the last twenty-four hours of the trip, and if Malverne Purdue had ever feigned any respect for the unit’s captain, his acting days were over.

  While all these situations were simmering and settling, Theodora Clay came back to the second passenger car and sat across the sleeper compartment from Mercy, even though she and her aunt had moved to the other side of the aisle, given the reduction in the passenger load. She placed her hands on top of her knees, firmly gripping the fabric of her skirt as she leaned forward and said, “Things are going from bad to worse.”

  “Yep,” Mercy replied carefully, for she suspected that Miss Clay was not making a social call.

  “I’ve been talking to the captain,” she said. “And trying to talk to Mr. Purdue. You must be aware by now that he’s a madman. Did you hear he shot Cyrus Berry?”

  “Yep.”

  Her forehead wrinkled, then smoothed. “Oh yes. They said your friend the Texian was there when it occurred. I suppose he passed the information along. Well.” She released her grip on the dress and sat up straighter while she sorted out what else she ought to share. “Anyway, as I said. Regarding Mr. Purdue.”

  “A madman.”

  “An armed madman, even more delightfully. He won’t move, and he won’t take tea or coffee, and he just sits, with his chair beside the door and a Winchester lying across his lap and several other guns strapped all over himself. Overkill, I’d call it, but there you go. Sane men take a more moderated approach to these things.”

  “He’s not really crazy,” Mercy told her. “He’s just got a job to do, and he’s real excited about doing it.”

  Miss Clay said, “Be that as it may. Do you have the faintest clue what his job might be? Because no one seems to know what’s in the last car, except that it holds the bodies of dead soldiers. And I think we ought to investigate.”

  “We? You mean, you and me?”

  She said, “That’s right. You and I. For a brief and maddening minute I almost considered asking your Texian friend if he might be inclined to assist us, but for some reason or another, he seems to have vacated the train. I do pray he won’t be joining us again, but that’s neither here nor there.”

  “He’ll be back. He’s picking up telegrams.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. Even so, he might’ve been just the man to barrel past Mr. Purdue, or to sneak past that other boy who does Mr. Purdue’s bidding. If nothing else, I doubt he’d have too many compunctions about shooting past the pair of them. Those Texians. Dreadful lot, the whole breed.”

  “I’ve often said the same about Yankee women, but you don’t see me going on about it, now, do you?” Mercy retorted.

  This shut down Miss Clay momentarily, but she chose not to read too far into the statement. After all, there were class distinctions among the northern regions same as in the southern regions, and everyone knew it. Either Miss Clay was choosing to believe she was being insulted by a Midwesterner, or she’d already concluded she dealt with a gray traitor and had come to terms with it, because she did not call attention to the remark.

  Instead she said, “Come now, Mrs. Lynch. There’s no need to be rude. I want us to work together.”

  The nurse asked, “And why is that?”

  Theodora Clay leaned forward again, speaking softly enough that her aunt, napping nearby, would not be roused by her words. “Because I want to know what killed those lads.”

  “I reckon it was a cannonball to the chest, or something similar. Or a missing arm or leg. Like as not, if there are real war veterans dead back there, that’s what killed them.”

  She nodded. “That, or infection, or . . .” She dropped the whisper another degree. “Poison.”

  “Poison?” Mercy responded, too loudly for Miss Clay’s liking.

  She shrugged and waved her hands as if she wasn’t certain of where she was going, but the plan was forming and she was determined to exposit it. “Poison, or some kind of contamination. I . . . I overheard something.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes, those Mexican inspectors, they-”

  “Are they still on board?”

  “Yes,” Miss Clay said quickly, eager to get back to her idea. “They’ve moved to the next car up. They were talking about some kind of illness or poison that they think might’ve contaminated their missing men. I know you spoke with them.”

  “They might’ve mentioned it.” Or she might’ve mentioned it, but she didn’t say so.

  Nearly exasperated, Miss Clay said, “Mr. Purdue was talking to that fellow, that Mr. Hayes.”

  “About the missing Mexicans?”

  “Yes. He was reading a newspaper-while he was back there, like a toad in a hole-and I was only trying to get some breakfast. He was telling Mr. Hayes that something that could alter so many hundreds of people all at once would make a tremendous weapon, if that’s what had happened. And before long, if he had his way, the Union would be in a position to produce just such a weapon.”

  It was Mercy’s turn to frown. “Turning a disease or a poison into a weapon? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “I have,” Miss Clay informed her. “During the French and Indian war, the government gave smallpox-infected blankets to hostile tribes. It was cheaper and easier than exterminating them.”

  “What a gruesome way of looking at it!”

  “Gruesome indeed! It’s an army, Mrs. Lynch, not a schoolyard full of boys. It’s their job to destroy things and kill people in the name of their own population. They do what they must, and they do it as inexpensively as they can, and as efficiently as possible. What could be more insidious and efficient than an unseen contagion?”

  Mercy lifted a finger to pretend to doodle on the table between them as she responded. “But the problem with an unseen contagion is obvious, ain’t it? You’re gonna infect your own folks with it, sure as you infect other people.”

  “Clearly some amount of research and development would be required, but isn’t that what Mr. Purdue does on his own time, in order to justify his continued existence as a passenger on this train? He’s a scientist, and he’s guarding a scientific treasure trove. For the military,” she emphasized this final point.

  “It sounds awful, but I don’t guess I’d put it past him.”

  “Neither would I,” Miss Clay said with a set of her mouth that wasn’t quite a smile, but conveyed the fact that she thought that now she and the nurse might finally be on the same page. “And that’s why we must take this opportunity while the train is stationary, to sneak into that rear car and see what’s inside.”

  Mercy’s eyebrows bounced up. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I can. I’ve even changed my shoes for the occasion.”

  “Bully for you,” Mercy said. “What are you going to do? I’ve already done my best to persuade the captain to intervene. Shall you seduce your way past Mr. Purdue and-”

  “Don’t be revolting. And please recall, I’ve requested your own involvement as well. It’ll be disgusting, no doubt. And it wouldn’t be necessary if that blasted captain would stand up to the hierarchy and insist for himself that the things under his purview are all known quantities. But alas, I can’t convince him to budge on the matter. Ridiculous man, and his ridiculous sense of duty.”

  “He’s all right. You leave him alone.”

  Miss Clay made a little sniff and said, “If you say so. Now, come on.” She changed the subject, rising to her feet. “You and I are going to perform some reconnaissance.”

  “W
e’re going to do what?”

  “We’re going to poke around, and let ourselves into that car.”

  Mercy asked, “How? The doors are sealed and chained. You’ve seen that yourself, I bet, when we’ve stopped at stations and stretched our legs. And even if they weren’t, Mr. Purdue and his very large gun are standing between us and that car. Or, Mr. Hayes, as the case may be.”

  “Think bigger. Think higher.” She pulled on a pair of thin calfskin gloves and fastened their buttons while she said, “We’ll go over. There’s an emergency hatch on the roof. It’s designed to let people out, not in, but unless I’m sorely mistaken, it will work both ways.” Finished with her gloves, she continued, “Here’s what we’ll do: We’ll go to the last passenger car, take the side ladder up to the roof, and crawl across the top of the caboose, then jump over to the final car.”

  Mercy said, “You’re daft!” but she was already getting excited about the plan.

  “I’m daft, and I’m going. And I require your medical . . .” She almost didn’t say it, but in the transparent hope that flattery might get her someplace, she finished with, “expertise.”

  “Oh, for the love of God.”

  “Please, Mrs. Lynch. The repairmen are finished with the rear compartments, and they’ve moved on to the engine and the broken windows in the first car. We won’t be here more than another hour.”

  Mercy said, “Fine,” folded her satchel up, and left it on her seat. She rose and adjusted the gunbelt she now wore more often than not and draped her cloak over her shoulders without raising the hood.

  As she followed Theodora Clay out of their passenger car and onto the next one, she did not mention that their errand might prove to be a race against time. She did not tell her companion about the Shenandoah, the Confederate engine that had ridden a northwestern track in order to bring those meat-baskets up to the plains and unleash them on the Dreadnought. She did not mention that she had indeed been talking to the Texian, and that he believed the Shenandoah was still following, tracking to the south and east, but closing ground, despite its defeat. If he was lucky, Horatio Korman was in the process of retrieving a telegram that would inform him of how correct his suspicions were. And if they were all lucky, it would say that the Shenandoah had given up, turned around, and headed back down to Dallas.