The Railroad War (45 page)

Well over an hour after Hawken and Stetson had descended into the ferry’s bilge, they emerged and looked furtively around.
Seeing nothing disturbing, they proceeded to the next of the three ferries.

While they were inside that one, Crandell himself went down into the first bilge and examined the work the two men had done.

He found that a number of the crucial beams and structural supporting pieces of the bow framework had been cut through, after
which the damage had been disguised with a mixture of wax and sawdust. It would take most diligent and careful observation
to detect the harm. Once the ferry was under way, however, and up to speed, Crandell was pretty certain that the ferry’s bow
would cave in.

Crandell’s orders from Major Ballard clearly stated that he was only to observe the activities of Captain Hawken. He was in
no way to stop him or apprehend him unless Hawken was directly endangering someone else’s life.

Captain Crandell went to wake the major.

When Noah Ballard arrived at the shipyards, Hawken and Stetson had not yet emerged from the second ferry. Noah ordered a guard
placed at all the bilge exits. Then he himself descended into the bilge. He was armed with a Colt revolver.

He half crouched and half crawled noiselessly through the dark, dank muck in the bowels of the boat, his movements muffled
by the slap of the waves against the hull, the creaking of the boat, and the slow, steady rustle of the bilge water itself.
He’d considered but rejected a lantern. What he intended to do, he wanted to do in the dark.

The two men, lit by dim candlelight, were intent on their work when Noah got close enough to make his move. They seemed indifferent
to the possibility of their being caught.

And then Noah considered that they realized that the bow itself was such a trap that they would never stand a chance, so their
best security was fast work.

Despite the bodily contortions forced by the cramped space, they were both working swiftly, efficiently, and surely.

Noah was perhaps fifteen feet away from the two men. He wiped droplets of sweat from his forehead and around his eyes, drew
his revolver, and slowly, carefully cocked it.

He drew in a breath and spoke: “How are you, Sam? It’s been a long time.”

“Jesus!” Sam Hawken breathed, and then moving almost too fast to see, he dropped the tool that was in his hand, snatched at
the candles to put them out, and started to dive for cover.

Noah fired a warning shot before Sam’s hand reached either of the candles. “Don’t, Sam,” Noah warned.

“Who’s there?” Sam asked warily. “I know the voice.”

But Noah didn’t want to satisfy his curiosity yet. “Both of you take what weapons you’re carrying and drop them.” The two
men carefully lifted their revolvers from their belts, and then the younger man looked doubtfully at the bilge water. “That’s
right,” Noah said to him. “Drop it into the water.” There were two splashes.

There was also the noise of other men arriving, signaled by Noah’s earlier warning shot. These men came with lanterns.

“Now put your hands on the tops of your heads,” Noah said. By the time they had complied, the men with lanterns had reached
Noah, and his face was now illumined enough for Sam Hawken to see it.

“Jesus Christ!” Sam said, shaking his head with angry resignation. The anger was aimed at himself. “Noah Ballard! I should
have known!”

“It’s been a long time, Sam,” Noah said. There was anger in Noah’s voice as well, but his anger was directed not at himself
but at Sam Hawken. “And from the looks of things, Sam, you’ve changed more than I have.”

“1 knew you were in Mobile, Noah,” Sam said, still shaking his head slowly. “I shouldn’t have risked coming near you.”

“But you did, didn’t you, you bastard?”

“Yes, Major Ballard, I did.” Then drawing himself as erect as the situation allowed, Sam Hawken spoke formally to Noah Ballard:
“Major Ballard, sir,” he said, offering some semblance of a salute, “I, Captain Sam Houston Hawken of the United States Army,
respectfully submit my surrender to you, effective immediately. I expect to be treated in accordance with the rules governing
the treatment of prisoners of war.”

“You can go fuck yourself, Sam Hawken,” Noah Ballard said.

Noah Ballard did not imprison Sam Hawken and Tom Stetson in the Mobile town jail; he had available a much more secure place
of captivity. The building on Front Street where Noah maintained his offices contained a large storage cellar, part of which
was divided into strongrooms for the safekeeping of especially valuable merchandise for import or export. The dimensions of
these rooms were approximately eight by twelve feet; they were windowless, with brick walls, flagstone floors, and double-thick
oak doors.

Two of these storerooms were converted into cells for Hawken and Stetson. They were each allowed a blanket to sleep on, a
pail for bodily wastes, one meal a day, and a separate pail of water. Except for a very brief meeting with Sam that Noah Ballard
allowed himself, the two prisoners were forbidden visitors, and they were not allowed lamps or candles, reading material,
writing material, or conversation with one another or with their guards.

In that one meeting, Major Ballard was rigidly cool, calm, and factual, never once alluding to his one-time friendship with
Sam Hawken. And Hawken, for his part, granted Noah the distance that Major Ballard clearly wanted to maintain.

Major Ballard explained to Captain Hawken that he intended to make Hawken’s and Stetson’s imprisonment in Mobile as severe
as he could devise. And he further intended to personally supervise their transport to Atlanta; there they would be placed
on trial. He had no doubt about the verdict and the punishment.

Captain Hawken replied that he accepted his own situation, but that he hoped the authorities would be lenient with Lieutenant
Stetson. Major Ballard made no comment to that request.

Even though conversation between guards and prisoners was officially denied, that prohibition did not reckon on the presence
of Sergeant Jimmy Sutton as chief warder. Sergeant Sutton and Captain Sam Hawken were longtime friends. In the past Lieutenant
Hawken and Sergeant Sutton (he was Sergeant then too; and the word was that he’d always been a sergeant, spilled out of his
mother’s womb with stripes on his arms) had served with then Colonel Robert E. Lee in South Texas before the war.

Sutton was lean and bearded, with dark eyes and thick, bushy brows. He had never been known to stand crisply and militarily
straight, yet somehow he contrived to look taller that his actual five feet ten. He had likewise never been know to obey with
anything approaching diligence or alacrity most military rules and regulations, yet somehow he was the one sergeant that officers
most depended on to take on and handle (or subdue, if that were required) their hardest troops. It was his reputation for
toughness that had recommended Sutton to Noah Ballard for the job of supervising his star prisoners.

It was a job, in fact, that Sergeant Sutton handled superbly. There was no danger that the prisoners would do anything that
they were not supposed to. But at the same time, Jimmy Sutton wasn’t going to lose the chance to chew the fat with a man he
had ridden with for many hot days and many thousands of miles all over the near desert between San Antonio and the Rio Grande.

When no one else was around to bother them, Sutton would take a jug of Havana rum and a candle into Hawken’s cell, and they
would trade tales together about the times they’d spent riding with Bobby Lee.

By an unspoken but mutual compact, they did not talk about the war—a compact that Sutton violated slightly when he asked Sam
at one point why he’d chosen to fight against his home state. Sam had sidestepped that question, and Sutton had wisely decided
not to pursue it. Sutton would never in a million years have asked about the charges that had brought Sam into the cell. Neither
would Sam in a million years have granted him the slightest hint of an answer.

Partly because of Sutton’s now and again blindness to rules, and partly because the visitor was who he was, the general prohibition
against visitors was violated sometime during Hawken’s second day of captivity.

The bolts outside the heavy oak door were shot, the door swung open, and Hawken blinked his eyes rapidly as he adjusted to
the sudden light.

“We’ve got a visitor for you,” Jimmy Sutton said to him. Sutton moved aside, revealing behind him Jane Featherstone. Jane
stood quietly there for a moment, then walked through the doorway. She carried a lamp in one hand and a small, paper-wrapped
package in the other. Once she was safely inside, the sergeant swung the door shut. “I’ll be right outside, Miss Featherstone,”
he said with a wink and an almost imperceptible nod toward Sam. “If you need me, knock.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” she said.

After she entered the room, she placed the lamp and the package on the floor, never taking her eyes off of Sam. She was acting
now very much as he remembered from their first meeting in Jackson—calm, self-possessed, intensely quiet.

While Jane went about her business, Sam remained seated in a corner with his bedding arranged under him and his back against
the wall. His face was without expression, and he made no move to speak. Nor did he try to rise—which would have been difficult;
his ankles were linked by leg irons. But he kept his eyes intent on Jane as she spent several long moments looking him up
and down.

“You aren’t surprised to see me, Sam?” she said at last.

“Surprised, Jane?” he asked, soft voiced, controlled. “Why do you say that?”

She smiled a coy little smile. “You didn’t really expect to see me here, did you?”

“You have a talent for the unexpected, Jane. I’ve learned not to be surprised by you.” He breathed a slow, regretful sigh,
then resumed. “It’s taken some effort and experience, but it’s a lesson I’ve learned.” He paused, then caught her eye. “Actually
Jane, I am surprised that they don’t have a cell here for you. A well-deserved captivity, no?”

“Sam!” she cried softly, with mock anger and petulance. “You don’t mean that, do you?”

When he didn’t answer her, she switched to another track. “I’ve brought you something to eat,” she said, and indicated with
her eyes the package beside the lamp.

He shot a brief look at the package, but otherwise ignored it.

“I wanted you to know that I don’t bear you any ill will…now.”

“Why should you bear me ill will, Jane?”

“Oh, Sam! Don’t be so thick!”

He looked at her impassively.

“Why are you here?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I wanted to see you.”

“Then by all means look, Jane. It’s the same Sam Hawken that you’ve seen many times before. A little worse for wear, maybe.”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Sam. I’m here to help you.”

“What kind of surprises are you planning for me, Jane,” he said quickly, “at the end of your help?”

“Don’t be this way, Sam, please. I’ve brought you some food, and I can come to see you now and then. We can talk. I can make
your imprisonment more comfortable.” She stopped, grew more grave. “I might be able to help you beyond that.”

“What are you doing in Mobile, Jane?” he asked ignoring her last hint.

“I’m the guest of Major Ballard.”

Sam cocked his brows at that. This was the first he had heard about a relationship between Noah and Jane. “Well,” he said,
“that comes as no surprise, either.”

“I’ve known Noah for quite some time. He’s offered me help and protection. And I’ve provided him with information that is
important to him.”

“I can well imagine,” Sam said. “Is it safe to guess that certain pieces of information you provided concerned a certain Union
captain named Hawken?”

“I told him what you are, Sam,” she admitted quietly. “It’s the truth.”

“I’m sure he believed what you told him. You are a very convincing woman, Jane. You didn’t by any chance tell him the truth
about yourself, did you?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean, Sam,” she said innocently.

“Well, Jane,” he said, “I won’t waste effort trying to enlighten you…” He paused significantly. “Or him. He’s not likely to
believe what I tell him anyhow.”

“No, he’s not, Sam,” she allowed.

She moved a few steps closer to him. “May I sit, Sam?”

“By all means,” he said in a mocking, sarcastic tone. “Do sit down; I won’t force you to stand. Be my guest. The flagstone
is pretty much equally soft anywhere you choose.” As he said these words, however, he half rose and pulled his bedding out
from under him, then threw it across to her. “Better still, Jane, sit on this. It’s softer than the stone.”

“Thank you, Sam,” she said, arranging the blankets on the floor and then sinking down on them. “You
are
a gentleman, you know.”

“That doesn’t seem to be an opinion that’s generally shared in these parts,” he said. “My old friend Major Ballard, as a case
in point, thinks I’m some kind of monster. I personally think he’s wrong, but still, Jane, I somehow trust his opinions more
than I trust yours.” He sighed again. “It puts me into sort of a quandary, doesn’t it?”

“Please, Sam,” Jane said, “there’s no requirement that you be cynical.” Then she moved on before he could come up with another
mocking reply. “But there is one thing I think we both agree on: Noah Ballard is a very good man, Sam.”

Sam nodded. “It’s a shame we’re on opposite sides,” he said in a low, gentle voice. “I miss his passions and his enthusiasms.”
Then he added crushingly, “But those qualities make him vulnerable to people like you, don’t they, Jane?”

“You may not know it,” she said, ignoring his last remark, “but he still thinks the world of you.”

“Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.”

“No matter what the evidence seems to be, he still loves you. But,” she went on quickly, “that doesn’t mean he will not do
to you what he says. As you said, he’s a man who’s prone to strong convictions. He’s ardent and passionate. He gives everything
he has to what he does.”