The Railroad War (47 page)

An hour and a half out into the bay, the rain started. It was slow and soft at first—but it grew heavier fast. And the wind
was still picking up, veering ever more from east to south, crowding more and more heavy Gulf waves into the narrow funnel
of Mobile Bay.

The captain had to slow the ferry down, but he kept pushing it to attain whatever headway he could. He wanted to reach what
was ahead of him fast, because what was behind him was swiftly turning monstrous and black, whipping the water into a fury
of power beyond the strength of mere steam, muscles, wood, and iron.

The rain was now falling at the rate of two or three inches an hour, the winds were gusting toward the upper end of gale force,
and the sky was murky and twilit—not dark as night, but a frightening amber gray.

It was not yet noon.
The Bay Queen
struggled forward, barely halfway across Mobile Bay.

The deck heaved and lifted and slewed drunkenly this way and that, and the twin giant locomotives showed signs of breaking
loose.

Sam Hawken and Tom Stetson, chained to Javelin’s drive wheels, stayed curled up, huddled compactly, insofar as that was possible,
into the protection offered by the locomotive.

Sam was growing alarmed. Javelin was chained to heavy deck rings, but it strained and groaned fiercely against its chains.
If the machine had possessed sentient intent one would have said it was struggling to be free of its fetters.

Jim Sutton appeared out of the dark and the rain, his face, beard, and hair wind lashed, streaked with blood. Some wind- or
wave-driven object had smashed into him. The wound was clearly painful, but not disabling.

He put his mouth to Sam’s ear. The wind howled, screamed, and thundered, its voice many octaved, loud almost beyond the limits
of flesh. “How are you making out?” he yelled.

“What’s happening?” Sam yelled back.

“We’re floating…which is as much of a miracle as I want to ask for.”

“Any sign of shore?”

“No.”

Javelin shifted and groaned, and then a huge wave wiped over the deck, lifting Jim Sutton up, threatening to sweep him away.
Almost before he’d noticed it, Sam’s hand had found Sergeant Sutton’s grasping and steadying him.

“Thanks, Sam,” Sutton mumbled after he regained his feet. Sam’s grip was on his belt now. Sutton said, “Why don’t you keep
your hand right where it is for the time being. I need to have a steady hand for what I came here to do.”

“What are you about to do?”

“Get you two men out of these chains. This boat’s in deep trouble, and you’re not going to want to be fastened to this locomotive
fifteen minutes from now.”

“It’s that bad?”

“A couple of minutes ago the steam died; the waves or the rain or some damn thing smothered the fire. And when that happened,
the captain just seemed to give up trying to run the ship. The last time I saw him, he was standing by the wheelhouse, and
he’d tied himself to a cork ring. He looked like he was only waiting for the boat to sink out from under him.

“And he’s probably right,” he continued, working on Sam’s locks as he did. “The wind’s caught us and it’s driving us broadside.
God only knows why we haven’t broached and flipped over, or why we’re even floating at all.”

“And nobody has tried to get the boiler lit again?”

“In this weather? There’s more time left for me to learn to swim than to do that.”

“You don’t swim, Jimmy?” Sam asked, as Sutton unlocked the chains that held Sam to the locomotive.

“You bet I don’t swim. I’m a horse soldier.”

Sam was free. He glanced at Tom and then he and Sutton made their way over to him.

“And, Tom, can you swim?” Sam asked.

“I can swim as much as anybody can who gets out of the Military Academy.”

“All right, Sergeant Sutton,” Sam yelled above the howling, “you’ll stay with me and Tom, just in case swimming gets necessary.”

“I don’t take orders from Federal officers,” Sutton said.

“Shut the righteous fuck up, Sergeant. You’ll take orders from me.”

“I have men out there on the deck somewhere I have to take care of.”

“And you will. But by staying with me. Come on, we’re going to try to restart the engine.”

They met Noah Ballard on the stairway down to the boiler room. He was coming up, holding tight to the stair rail, swaying
against the movement of the ferryboat. It was evident he’d already failed to do what Sam intended to try. His face was indomitably
intent, driven.

When he saw Sam, Noah gave a slight start, as though he didn’t quite recognize the man facing him. He pulled himself to a
halt, then said vaguely, “I have to save Dart, Sam. And Javelin. Will you help me?”

“That’s not possible, Noah,” he said gently. “There’s not enough time.”

“There has to be,” Noah insisted. “Has to be! They’re the best of the lot!”

“We’re wasting time here, Noah,” Sam said, still kindly. But then with greater urgency: “What I want to know is whether there’s
any chance of getting the boiler fire lit again.”

“No, Sam,” Noah answered, his voice drained of hope. “There’s too much water down there.”

“Then come on with me, Noah,” Sam said. “We’ll do what we can to save ourselves.”

Noah’s eyes grew suddenly wide, then filled with fury. “Where the hell are your chains, Sam?” he said loudly, to make himself
heard over the screaming wind. Then he noticed Jim Sutton behind Sam and Tom Stetson. “There, you, Sergeant. These men are
in your custody. How come they’re loose?”

“Noah, for God’s sake,” Sam yelled. “This is a damn-fool poor time to worry about chains and custody.”

“You’re wrong, Sam. You’re absolutely mistaken. All of that still stands.” He turned again to Jim Sutton. “Sergeant, how do
you explain it that they’re free?”

“Come up on deck,” Sam broke in, shouting. “There’s a chance for us up there.”

Noah continued working on Sutton, speaking loudly and urgently. “Sergeant, I want these two men confined in chains. And,”
he added angrily, “you’ve got a lot of explaining to do once we are back on shore, Sergeant.”

“I can’t, Major. Not while we might sink any second.”

“What do you mean, ‘can’t’? That’s a direct order, and I’m an officer.”

“I still can’t, Major. We get ashore, and I’ll take care of them for you. But while this boat’s about to break up or sink
or turn over…goddamn it, Major, I can’t let any man die that way!”

“You’re going to be in chains, too, once we make it to shore! And I’d shoot you right now—along with Sam Hawken and the kid
that’s with him—if I had a pistol.”

“Noah!” Sam yelled. “You’re a damned fool! And I’m just as much a fool as long as I stand arguing with you! All of us are
here below decks on a boat that doesn’t have more than five minutes’ life left in it. You can argue with yourself all you
want, Noah, or you can argue with the wind and the waves, but I’m going up and see about saving myself and maybe a few others.
And you’re coming with me, Sergeant Sutton. And so are you, Tom.” Sam surged rapidly up the stairs past Jim Sutton and Tom
Stetson.

Noah watched him until he reached the exit to the deck. Then he ran up the stairs as far as Sutton. “You’re not to obey that
man,” Noah said, grabbing his shoulder. “Not if you don’t want to be shot with him.”

Sutton shook himself loose. “What’s got into you, Major? You crazy?”

“Just do what I say,” he said.

“You don’t know this, Major, and I don’t have a lot of time to give you a patient explanation, but I’ve known Captain Hawken
since both of us served with Colonel Bob Lee. He and I have been in hard situations before, and we got out of them with skins
intact. If anybody can get up out of this here situation, I’d bet on him.”

“Even though he’s your enemy?”

“He ain’t
my
enemy, Major.”

Noah stared at him, furious, silent. When words finally came, his voice was strange, calm, threatening. “All right, Sergeant,
do what you want. Get the hell out of here.”

“You know something, Major?” Jim Sutton asked before he left. “You and Bob Lee have the same steel rail up your asses. And
it’s going to be the death of both of you.”

When Sergeant Sutton rejoined Sam Hawken on deck, he found Sam at the starboard rail, his hand pointing hard over the water.
Sam’s face was full of amazement and awe. Not three hundred yards away, a piece of shore was visible through the rain and
the dark.
The Bay Queen
was being driven in the direction of the starboard side. Somehow, despite that, and despite the presence of the locomotives
on deck, the incredible waves had not tipped the little vessel over.

“What do you think?” Sutton asked.

“I think I’m hoping,” Sam said.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going forward.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Seems the best place to be—as far away from those engines as I can get.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sutton said. “I’ll meet you there. I want to gather my troops there, too, if they aren’t already up forward.”

“Right,” Sam said. “You do that.” He turned to Stetson, who was standing next to him, clutching the rail as if it were his
last hope.

The boat heaved and dropped, made a corkscrew motion, and righted itself miraculously. The three men were momentarily plunged
underwater. Then, sputtering and shaking their heads, Sam and Tom moved forward while Sutton made his way to the rear to pick
up any stragglers who might still be there.

Sam found Jane Featherstone a few feet behind the bow. She was seated on the deck, her hands firmly gripping an iron deck
ring. Sometime earlier she had stripped off her heaviest clothes—the hoop, the petticoats, the jewelry, the fashionable traveling
coat—and changed into a simple cotton dress. Also sometime earlier she had slipped a cork ring over her head; she now had
it under her arms. Sam even noted with interest that she was barefoot.

Our Jane is never at a loss when it comes to survival, Sam Hawken thought to himself with admiration.

When she turned and recognized him, though, her face was rigid with fright. For Sam, that was gratifying.

He glanced in the direction of the patch of shore he’d seen earlier. To his relief, it was maybe fifty yards closer.

But he also saw something low and dark in the water ahead. Its shape was jagged and irregular, but it was hugely solid and
threatening.

Jim Sutton reappeared, trailed by a pair of troopers carrying Noah Ballard. One held his left shoulder, the other his right.
He was unconscious, and his right foot dangled from his ankle at an unnatural angle.

“What happened to him?” Sam asked when Sutton and the others reached him.

“He was trying to do some damn thing to one of his engines, and the fucker like to jumped and flicked him in the foot. Maybe
it’s crushed, but I can’t tell for sure.”

“Jesus!” Sam said, but his mind wasn’t totally on Noah’s injury, because his eyes had been pulled toward the object he’d seen
earlier in the water. It now squarely blocked their passage toward the shore.

Now he realized what it was. He was looking at the top of a locomotive—the funnel, the domes, the cab.

It must be, he guessed, one of the two on
The Mobile Star.
The
Star
must have sunk there and tipped sideways, and the engine must still be attached to it.

And they were closing on it fast.

The Bay Queen
surged, rose, and fell. Surged again, then slammed sideways into the half-submerged locomotive.
The Bay Queen
shuddered, lurched, cracked, began to break up….

“Get into the water!” Sam screamed unnecessarily. There was little choice. “And grab something that’ll float as you go!”

He made his way—with supreme difficulty, as the deck angle was now close to forty degrees above the horizontal—to the place
where the two troopers had deposited Noah. They themselves had already deserted the ship. Noah was now semiconscious, but
he did not recognize Sam.

It’s just as well that he’s not conscious, Sam thought. That injury is going to feel painful—if I can get him to shore, where
he can feel it.

He looked around for Jim Sutton, saw him, and motioned him over. He came. Sam looked around for Tom, too, but he was not visible.
Tom would have to take care of himself.

From the place where Sam and the other two were perched, the deck sloped down into churning, sucking, deadly water. It was
the windward side of the boat; it would be impossible to enter the sea there. There was a pause in the ferry’s breakup, and
Sam had time to consider another option or two.

He scrambled up the precariously pitched deck, grabbed a piece of rail, and stared over. It was comparatively quiet on the
lee side of the ferry.

The calm wasn’t all that Sam was offered. A number of heavy lengths of wood—railroad ties?—had collected next to the sides
of the boat, caught in the leeward eddies.

That’s where we’ll go in, he decided.

He scrambled back down to Sutton and Noah Ballard, and explained to Jim what he wanted to do. Together they dragged Noah up
the deck. Then Sam dropped into the bay.

He swam to one of the logs. His guess had been right. It was a tie. He grabbed it, then propelled it as close as he dared
to the place where Jim waited with Noah.

He waved. Sutton maneuvered Noah over the side and into the water. Somehow Sam managed to grab him before he lost him. Once
he had Noah in a sure grip, he lifted him onto the tie, and though Noah was still only at best semiawake, he was aware enough
to circle his arms around the tie and hold on.

Jimmy Sutton followed, and again Sam was successful. He caught Jimmy before he sank and placed his hands onto the tie. Sam
had to do that for him, because Jim Sutton’s eyes were closed tight. He looked again for Tom Stetson, and again he failed
to see him.

Sam then started kicking his feet to propel them toward the shore.

After a time, he felt eyes on him. He twisted around and saw Noah watching him. He was staring at Sam, unblinking. Noah Ballard’s
eyes, for the first time since Sam had left him at the boiler room stairwell, showed consciousness and recognition. He knew
who it was who had saved his life, but the eyes were at the same time vacant, hollow. Defeat had emptied them.