The Trainmasters (50 page)

“I’m certain of that, too,” Francis said.

John rubbed his cheek and jaw, and then pulled on the hair at the back of his head.

Egan watched a small figure climb out of the cellar.

“Give me the glasses!” he ordered.

John passed them over, and Egan held them up to his eyes.

“It’s Peg!” he hissed.

“Peg?” John reached for the glasses. “Where?”

Egan pointed. “That’s a guard with her. He’s taking her out… to answer nature.”

John nodded, then gave the glasses to Francis.

“You see the cellar door?” Egan said. “The others have to be in there, too.”

The three of them watched as the guard returned Peg to the cellar, then shut and bolted the door.

“You don’t think they’d keep them in separate places?” Francis asked.

“That’s possible,” John said. “But the Keans don’t have any reason to feel insecure at the moment. And it would be more convenient
to keep them all in one spot.”

Just then Ferdy O’Dowd crawled over and placed himself next to Egan.

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph!” he exclaimed quietly, when he saw the camp below. “I thought we were coming here to sneak up on a farmhouse,
not a goddamned castle guarded by a goddamned army!”

“It doesn’t look promising for the stealth we had in mind when we talked you into coming here,” Egan said. The bitterness
was still in his voice.

“Don’t come to any fast conclusions,” Francis warned. “My mental engines are starting to build up steam.”

“What does he mean by that?” Ferdy asked.

“He means,” Egan said, “that he’s beginning to get an idea.”

“A lot of good an
idea
is gonna do us,” Ferdy said.

Egan laughed. “With idea firmly in hand, I rushed into battle against mine enemies.”

“Shut your mouth, O’Rahilly,” Francis said, “while I forge in my mind the weapon that’ll win for us.”

Twenty minutes later he motioned for John and Egan to come with him. They moved down below the crest of the ridge, out of
range of the camp and the big house below. Then in a normal voice John and Francis talked, while Egan listened.

“Since there’s no way we can take on that horde directly,” Francis said, “I’ve been trying to work out a way to take them
on indirectly.” He stopped a moment, reflecting. “Not to beat them—we’ll never do that—but to throw them into enough confusion
to allow us to grab the women, and kids, and Graham if he’s here.”

“I understand you,” John said, motioning with his hand to continue.

“Good,” Francis said. “That’s not going to be easy, obviously. But there’re a few things that give me encouragement.”

“What are they?”

“The gunpowder wagons, first of all.”

John cocked his brows. “Go on?”

“And the way the camp is set up. It’s not military; there’s no order or reason to it; it’s all helter skelter. There’s a watch
set up here and there, but they really haven’t paid much heed to security. There’s nobody taking care of the perimeters, for
instance. It looks to me like they believe that the isolation of the place makes them safe, as well as the fact that there
are so many men here that it would take an army to do them much damage.”

“I can follow that,” John said.

“And we don’t have to beat them,” Francis continued. “We only have to distract them for the length of time it takes to move
in and snatch the captives.”

“How long is that?” John asked.

“I think we could do that in three minutes—if all the captives are together in that cellar.”

John shook his head, and then shrugged. “All right,” he said, trying to suspend his disbelief.

“So, I’ve got two conclusions,” Francis said. “First, there’s so many of them that they won’t notice if a few strangers slip
in among them.” He paused. “Second, the way that camp is set up, in the event of an attack, all those men would get in the
way before most of them could be brought to bear against the attacker.”

“You’re saying that a force smaller than they are could beat them?”

“That’s right,” Francis said.

“As few as nine?” Hgan asked sardonically.

Francis gave him a look. “Not exactly,” he said. “But I did learn a few things from a Cherokee I met in Texas…” And Francis
then proceeded to outline what he had in mind.

John and Egan made a few additions and corrections. Then a few minutes later the other six were brought into the plan. And
soon, they were all busy at work, for the plan called for the manufacture of a few pieces of equipment. Fortunately, the equipment
could be fashioned from materials that lay nearby in the wilderness.

At the darkest hour of the night, at approximately a quarter to four in the morning, a pair of very recent arrivals were walking
in the camp next to the big house. The new pair—Egan O’Rahilly and Francis Stockton—wandered casually among the horses, oxen,
Conestoga wagons, and mostly sleeping men, catching their bearings, seeing how everything was set up.

Those men who were awake paid little notice to the two wanderers. Francis was right: This was not a place where security was
enforced. The teamsters loved freedom too much to make it enforceable. If a couple of men wanted to be up and about, that
was their business.

After a while, the pair, who didn’t talk much beyond an occasional short whisper, separated. Each, casually but cautiously,
worked his way toward the two powder wagons, which had been placed for safety’s sake about twenty yards beyond the camp. They’d
been drawn up onto a slope about a hundred yards behind the house. The slope wasn’t steep, but there was still a noticeable
decline down to the house and then to the road to Tyrone beyond that.

It wouldn’t be hard for a team of oxen or horses, aided by the slope, to start the two heavy wagons moving. It was probably
for that reason that the wagons had been placed where they were.

Two guards were stationed in front of the wagons, and two behind. One of the guards in front was pacing back and forth over
a short course, doing his best to stay awake. The other was standing still, leaning against his musket. His eyes were closed.

Egan stopped in front of the fire nearest to the wagons and stood warming himself, while Francis ambled up to the pacing guard
and started chatting with him. A few moments later, something passed between them. Egan imagined that it was tobacco. His
view of the wagons was not what he wanted it to be, so he shifted his position a bit.

That was better. Now he could make out in the darkness three figures slipping up on the man sleeping on the musket. Good.
It meant that the two guards at the rear of the wagons were already out of action. Quickly and silently, the three took the
sleeping man. A thong was wrapped around his neck. Hands grabbed his feet and lifted him up. Other hands grabbed the musket.
And in seconds the whole operation was completed—without a hitch and without a sound. And a new guard, Joe O’Rourke, was now
standing with the musket.

Next was the guard who’d been talking to Francis Stockton. A sharp, quick blow to the head did the trick. His place was taken
by Marty Toolan.

And now the conspirators were in possession of the powder wagons.

The man at the fire remained where he was. His job was to act as lookout while the others completed their preparations. If
anyone showed an interest in any of the activities at the wagons, he would do his best to make sure that the interest wasn’t
followed up. A cry of alarm, of course, would kill everything. And there was no way he could stop that.

But as it happened, there was no need for concern. All the activity at the wagons was done behind them, out of sight of the
rest of the camp. And so no one close enough to notice betrayed any interest in the wagons.

Though Egan could not see in the dark the people working behind the wagons, he knew who they were. In addition to Francis,
there were John Carlysle and Dan Cahill. Geraghty and Quigley were in charge of the horses, which—if all was going according
to plan—were now just outside of the camp, a few yards beyond the wagons. And Ferdy was prowling through the camp itself,
keeping an eye and ear out for any suspicious movements. It was his job to give warning to the others, which probably meant
that he’d be sacrificing himself. When the plan went into action, his job would be to join Egan at the cellar entrance.

As Egan kept watch, the four unconscious guards at the wagons were stripped, and their clothes were then fashioned into rough
sacks. These were added to other sacks, which the conspirators had put together back up on the ridge. Once the sacks were
all gathered together, gunpowder kegs were opened, and gunpowder was poured into the sacks. When the sacks were all filled,
the conspirators had constructed close to thirty crude bombs.

While Francis supervised the filling of the sacks, John rummaged through the big wagons until he found coils of fuse line.
With his knife he cut off a three-foot length of the line. Then he took it back into the woods and lit it, timing it.

Now he knew how long the fuse took to burn.

After that he returned to the coil and cut off the remaining lengths that he needed. Six of these he cut short; each would
bum for about a minute. The rest he cut a bit longer. The six short ones he attached to six of the crude bag bombs. Then he
attached longer ones to the rest of the bombs. Other lengths he kept in reserve for other purposes.

Next, the six short-fused bombs were fastened to rudely fashioned javelins that the men had hacked and carved from pine branches
up on the ridge. Francis and Cahill carried these back and placed them in slings, which had been made out of twine and attached
to the sides of three of the saddles, two slings to a saddle. Other slings had also been constructed for these saddles. They’d
been fashioned in such a way that a rider on the move could pluck sack bombs from the slings and throw them unhindered.

While Francis, Cahill, Quigley, and Geraghty tended to these, John took ten of the remaining full kegs of gunpowder, punched
a hole in each, and attached a fuse to the hole. Then he lined the kegs up on either side of the wagons so that given a kick
to get them started they would roll down into the camp.

His final act was to attach fuses to the kegs in the powder wagons themselves. Then he signaled to Francis and Egan that he
was ready.

As soon as he saw John’s signal, Egan started walking casually back toward the house… and the cellar door.

And Francis signaled that he, too, was set to go. He, Quigley, and Geraghty were to ride the horses carrying the bombs into
the camp. Toolan, Cahill, and O’Rourke were to follow them, bringing up the horses the freed captives would ride.

John would remain at the powder wagons. His job was to create the final diversion.

Francis, Geraghty, and Quigley mounted their horses, and the fuses of their bombs were lit. Not all of them, however. At the
last moment Francis got worried that he and the other riders wouldn’t have time to get rid of all the sacks they were carrying.
And so each of the bomb carriers saved a pair of their bombs, placing them with fuses unlit in their saddlebags.

As Francis and the two others urged their horses forward, they could make out the first line of gray in the east. In a few
minutes the birds would start singing, and the men in the camp would wake up.

But it wouldn’t be birds that awakened the camp this morning.

Egan, by now, had positioned himself at one of the corners of the house, out of sight of the cellar guards. After that he
waited.

Seconds later he heard what he was waiting for—the pulsing drumbeat of galloping horses.

And seconds after that, without alarm or warning, the three horsemen swept into the camp.

Their first goal was the main house. As they rode by they hurled the javelins through the windows and onto the roof.

Egan held his breath. One … two… three… four…

And then there was a loud crack, a flash, and a blast, followed swiftly by four other explosions. One apparently failed to
ignite.

The riders, without stopping, diverged after they left the house, and finding lanes through the men and equipment, they tossed
their other bombs to their left and right as they raced toward the other side of the camp—and safety.

By now the place was filled with shouts and screams and the noises of men leaping and scurrying. But none of Kean’s men had
any idea what was happening.

The other bombs were now exploding. And Egan tried counting, to see how many went off. But he quickly lost track. The racket
the bombs made blended into one glorious cacophony.

Goddamn!
he thought gleefully.
It’s working!

Everywhere he looked there was confusion and panic.

And the riders were galloping out of sight.

The explosions had ceased now. But in their place ragged gunfire had broken out. Too late to do any damage to the riders,
Egan reflected. In fact, the gunshots were more of a danger to the people in the camp than to their attackers riding away.

A stray shot could get me!
Egan realized, ducking down.