The Trainmasters Page 38

  “Yes, of course. They’d never let you get away with any funny moves—if they do manage to stop us.”

  “That’s it,” John said sadly. “It has to be someone besides me. And the two other men … aren’t available.”

  “So tell me the signal, Mr. John Carlysle,” she said with a grim, bitter smile.

  The train stopped to take on wood and water just outside the town of Petersburg. While they were stopped, John, who wanted to lose as little time there as possible, brought his two youngest boys down to the wood lot to help with the loading. Enough people were there, counting the driver and the fireman, to set up a fireman’s relay between the lot and the tender. And in no time, the tender was once again full.

  Just another few miles, John thought anxiously, and we’ll be completely safe.

  Things were looking up. That was beginning to seem clearer and clearer. Every mile farther from Tyrone is a mile closer to safety.

  But where is Francis? he wondered, not knowing whether to be thankful or worried that Francis had not gotten a message to him.

  The fireman was stoking up the firebox, the two boys were back in their seats inside the car, and John was just about to remount the steps to the rear platform when he heard the noises of many horses in the woods close behind him.

  He didn’t have to look up to know who had arrived.

  When he did raise his eyes to confirm what he already knew, he saw an older man riding in front of the troop. This, of course, was George Kean. Matthew Kean rode just behind him. Several other men spread out on either side of them, leveling muskets at John and the windows of the railroad car.

  “You must be John Carlysle,” the older man called out as he approached closer. “I’ve never met you, but I’d recognize you anywhere.”

  “I’m Carlysle,” John acknowledged.

  “I’m Kean,” George said, “and this is my son Matthew.” His eyes drank John in thirstily. “In a funny way, John Carlysle, I’m glad to see you.”

  “I can’t honestly say the same,” John replied.

  And George gave a slight smile.

  But then a very curious look came onto John’s face. He was wondering how the Keans had managed to slip up on him so quietly. “You must have been waiting for us just inside the woods,”

  John went on, “or else I would have heard your horsemen riding up.”

  “You’ve got it,” George said with the tight smile still on his face. “That’s what we did. We were here maybe ten minutes ahead of you, and so 1 thought it would be—interesting—to lie in wait.” He paused. “But if we hadn’t done that, it would have been interesting, too.”

  “How’s that?” John asked.

  “I’d be very interested to do to this train you’ve been riding what you did to my house this morning.”

  John looked in the other man’s face, blinking a couple of times.

  “You’re quite a man, John Carlysle,” George went on. This last was said matter-of-factly, as an acknowledgment of what Kean took to be a simple and incontrovertible reality. “And gave me quite a surprise this morning.” He moved his horse closer to John, studying him, examining him. “And I’m most happy that you’re where you are right now, and I’m where I am.”

  “Mr. Kean, I’m sure I’d much prefer to be in your position than mine as well,” John said softly, stiffly. There was respect in his voice; he saw in George Kean a worthy, powerful, and clever adversary, but there was bitterness too. He had no love for the Keans or what they had done.

  “I don’t think I much like you either, Carlysle,” Kean said, sensing what John felt about him. “My life would have been a lot easier and happier if you’d never been alive.

  “We have a lot in common, Carlysle,” George continued. “We both have the same desires for one another.” Then he addressed Matthew. “Matt, I don’t expect that anyone on the train will conceive of any notion to do us harm. But I also expect that these people have a few weapons with them; and since I’m a believer in original sin, I imagine that it will be necessary to remove temptation. Will you see to that? After you finish, Mr. Carlysle and I will board the train so that he can introduce me to the others in his party.” He grinned. “I actually am already acquainted with a good number of them.”

  Matthew climbed down off his horse, and with five other men to help him, he boarded the train to do his father’s bidding.

  Two or three minutes later, he was on the rear platform of the train car, assuring his father that no one inside was armed.

  “Then you will precede me, Mr. Carlysle,” George Kean said. He dismounted and then let John lead him into the car.

  Once he was inside, John took a quick glance through the car, to see where everyone was: Matthew and two other armed men had stationed themselves at the front of the car, while the three others who’d come in with him had placed themselves at the rear. Teresa was where John had put her, in a seat near the center of the car… And her eyes were focused hard on John. There was fear and desperation in them, but she was clearly ready to do what she had to. Graham, in a seat across the aisle from Teresa, had awakened from the deep sleep he’d been in earlier, but he seemed more dazed than alert. Egan and Peg were in one of the seats toward the front—between Teresa and Matthew. Egan seemed no different from before. He sat in his chair, empty-eyed, holding Peg’s hand. And the two boys, finally, were both near where John was standing at the moment.

  George then strode up and down the aisle, glancing over the prisoners, taking in their faces, each in turn.“ And there’s the young Mr Carlysle,” he said, when his eyes reached Graham. “You and I have some business to finish, boy.” And his glance instantly fell on Teresa, across from Graham. “And you, too, girl. It’ll be later today. Just like I promised.”

  “And you must be O’Rahilly,” he said further on. “I’ve heard plenty about you. You must be quite a man.” This again was said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m sorry about your wife. I didn’t want anything like that to happen.” His shoulders drooped sadly when he said that.

  At first John thought that Egan wouldn’t respond to that. But then suddenly his face became reanimated. Egan couldn’t contain his grief-fuelled rage. “But you did cause it, you bastard! If you hadn’t kidnapped her and Peg and the others, she’d still be alive.”

  “Things just don’t work that way, O’Rahilly,” Kean said calmly, refusing to rise to the bait. And then he returned the length of the car so that he could again be near John. “I want to spend some time with you. I want to talk a while to a man like you. But not here. Not now. We’ve got to move.”

  Then he called down the aisle. “Matthew, get ready. I’m going to bring ‘em out!”

  “Are you going to kill us?” John asked, his eyes on Teresa. That was the signal they had agreed on.

  And Teresa bent down, struck the match she’d held ready, and lit the fuse that was hanging out of the saddlebag. A moment after that, she was sitting up again. The glance she gave John told him all he wanted to know.

  “What are you doing, girl?” Matthew demanded.

  She was about to tell him some lie or other, but John intervened. “I kept some of the powder we used this morning and made one last, large bomb. She just lit the fuse that will set it off. There’s enough powder in the bag she’s holding—lift it up, Tess, for them to see—to kill everyone in this car.”

  “You’re crazy!” Matthew shouted. “You want to kill yourself? And you want to kill her, too? And the kids?”

  “No,” John said, “I’m not crazy at all. I’m a gambler. I’m gambling that you’ll take the other choice you’ve got.”

  “What choice is that?” George asked quietly.

  “You can hand me your pistol,” he said to George, “and the men behind you can pass their weapons to me as well. The others can throw your weapons out the windows. And then all of you will kneel down on the floor. You have about twenty seconds left.”

  George looked thoughtfully at Teresa, at once fearing, despising
, and admiring her. “And you would do this?” he asked her.

  She nodded. Her eyes were bright and hard. “If I don’t, would you still hang me?” she asked.

  George had no answer to that.

  But Matthew Kean did not intend to take what Teresa was doing quietly. “I’ve got other choices,” he said, lifting his pistol and taking aim at her.

  “Down, Teresa!” John shouted, warning her.

  Matthew fired the pistol, but she had already ducked behind the seatback. The bullet passed harmlessly above her.

  The three guards behind John and George attempted some kind of action, but when he heard them moving George gave them a look, and they pulled up short. He knew that John, who was standing between them and Teresa, could prevent them from reaching her long enough for the fuse to burn to its end.

  Matthew, meanwhile, was racing down the aisle, trying to reach Teresa and the bomb. But he never came close to her, for Egan, forgetting his grief or maybe propelled by it, surged out of his seat and drove Matthew across the aisle and onto the floor between the seats.

  George thought for a fraction of a second, and then called out, defeated, defeated as he’d never imagined it possible to be defeated, “Do as he said. And get down on the floor.”

  In a flash, the guards moved to obey him. After John took the weapons he wanted, after the other guns had been thrown out the windows, and after George and his men had begun to kneel, John nodded to Teresa. She ripped the fuse out of the saddlebag.

  Sixteen

  Wednesday, July 28, 1852

  There was a light chop in the sea on that midsummer afternoon, and a moderate breeze crossed the starboard bow of Commodore Vanderbilt’s new yacht, the North Star. But the sun was bright, and the sky over the North Atlantic was cloudless. It was a glorious day. And the ship, in spite of the chop and the breeze, was making excellent time. The captain believed that if the weather continued to hold, the ship would make New York, its home port, by the following Monday. And this would mean that the North Star had made one of the fastest ever Atlantic crossings and returns.

  The North Star had left Philadelphia (after being fueled and provisioned in record time) on July 11, a Sunday. It sailed into Southampton ten days later, on July 21. And two days after that it was at sea again.

  The ship carried no cargo, only passengers. On the way out, a man and a woman. And on the return these two were joined by another, older man.

  The Commodore’s chief instruction to his captain was to treat these people like royalty. And the captain did his best to comply, even though the very recently built North Star was rushed into the voyage unprepared and only partially fitted with the normal conveniences and appointments, not to mention many of the luxuries the Commodore had acquired for installation in his own personal yacht.

  Not that the ship was comfortless. The passengers dined in a dining saloon whose walls were ligneous marble with panels of Naples granite, and on whose ceilings were medallion paintings of such characters in American history as Columbus, Washington, Webster, and Clay. And at night the man and the woman danced (the chief steward played a better than fair piano) in a ballroom covering half the deck, which was paneled with satinwood and rosewood.

  So the passengers weren’t inclined to complain about the lack of some creature comforts, to the captain’s great relief, for he was mortally afraid of the Commodore.

  In fact they were interested more than anything else in speed, for the three of them were brimming over with some incredible but very secret excitement, which would find its release only after they reached New York.

  After speed, the two Philadelphia passengers were primarily interested in each other. The man and the woman hardly left each other’s company during the entire course of the voyage out to England.

  On the return, the new man, an English aristocrat and industrialist, had some kind of call on their time and attention. But they still found plenty of moments to be alone with one another.

  This moment on the afternoon of the twenty-eighth, however, was one of the few times on the voyage that they did not spend in each other’s close company. The woman, Kitty Lancaster, was standing by herself up near the ship’s bow, while the man, John Carlysle, reclined in a chair several paces behind her on the foredeck, in the sun.

  Behind him, near midships, the great broadside wheels that propelled the North Star churned mightily. And huge billows of black smoke swelled out of the twin stacks.

  But neither the man nor the woman paid attention to that. Even though they were apart from one another at this particular time, their minds were tightly joined. And his eyes gazed fondly at her, drinking her in, while she looked out to sea, her face to the wind.

  The breeze became her. Its fingers passed gently through her hair, lifting loose strands like dark ribbons and sending them flying behind her. When she shook her head, not to straighten her hair, but to allow the breeze greater access, she glanced back over her shoulder at John Carlysle to make sure he was watching her.

  He was—always.

  “Ah, John,” a voice called out, “so there you are!” It was the passenger the North Star had raced to England to fetch: Sir Charles Elliot.

  John looked up to acknowledge him. “Sir Charles,” he said.

  “I thought you would be taking advantage of the grand weather,” Sir Charles said. “Both of you.” He indicated Kitty with a tilt of his head.

  “Correct, as usual, Sir Charles,” John said with a smile. “There’s another chair,” John said, pointing. “Pull it up next to me.”

  “I think I’ll do just that,” Sir Charles said. And a few moments later, he was in a deck chair, reclining next to John.

  “How long have you been out of doors?” Sir Charles asked.

  “An hour or so I think. We both came out after dinner.”

  At that moment Kitty turned once more to look at John. And seeing Sir Charles, she smiled.

  “Come sit with us,” Sir Charles called out, making a come-hither motion with his hand.

  But Kitty shook her head no. Then she realized she’d better explain herself. “Later, Sir Charles,” she called. “I need some time to myself… to think.”

  “What’s a lovely girl like that need to think for?” Sir Charles asked in a low voice to John. “She only needs to be seen. And caressed.”

  John laughed. “The chief attraction of this one, my dear friend, is that she does think. And she does it rather well— for a man or a woman.”

  “Then you are very lucky, John,” Sir Charles said, suddenly serious.

  “Yes,” John said, “I’m sure I am.”

  “You will marry her, won’t you?”

  John nodded.

  “Soon?”

  “That’s why Kitty is standing there meditating.”

  “She’s not meditating whether, I take it, but when?”

  “Exactly, Sir Charles.”

  “Ahh,” Sir Charles said, slowly. Then he looked up at John sharply. “I hope I’ll be invited to the affair. I’d like to have the pleasure of… giving away the groom.”

  John laughed again. “I have every expectation that you will still be in the United States when the marriage takes place.”

  “Ahh,” he said again, slowly. His face broke into a wide grin but was then transformed into a mask of age and decrepitude. “Oh my,” he forced out in an outrageously exaggerated mockery of an old man’s croak, “I should wonder if my poor old heart will bear up under all this excitement.” His hand fluttered to his brow. “There’s you to get rid of first. And then me spinster daughter.”

  “She’s scarcely twenty-five, you old goat.”

  “Twenty-five going on forty,” Sir Charles said.

  “Well, you lost your chance for the best man for her,” John said.

  “Meaning you?” Sir Charles smiled.

  ‘Take whatever conclusion you like.”

  “Hers is a good match now,” Sir Charles said. “Actually.” The jovial mood had now passed, and his eyes
were lightly focused on a pair of high clouds.

  “I’m glad for her, too,” John said. “Actually. I’m sure the earl of Aylwen will make her very happy, and every bit as rich as you are.”

  “You would like Axel,” Sir Charles said. “Perhaps someday, when you are in England, I’ll arrange a meeting for you if he is there. Axel has contracted one of our national diseases. He likes to travel in strange, exotic locales with a bag slung over his shoulder and stout boots on his feet.”

  “She can go with him,” John offered.

  “Diane? Never. There are only two poles to her life, John: London and country houses. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t think she would suit you.”

  “And she would suit him—the way he is?”

  “Like hand to glove. She will remain in England, and he will travel… But there, life as man and wife will be interesting.” He laughed. “I wonder what would happen if she actually lifted up her roots and tried to live in Siam. Or Nepal. Or in a villa in Bali.”

  A steward appeared, carrying a tray with a tea service on it. “Would either of you gentlemen care for a cup of tea?” he asked. They both told him they would.

  After the steward departed, Sir Charles, sipping his tea, caught John’s eye. “You were telling me,” Sir Charles said, “of your marvelous adventures in the Pennsylvania wilderness.”

  “I thought I’d already told you all there is to tell,” John said with a smile, “a dozen or so times.”

  “Perhaps you have. Perhaps you have. But have pity on a failing old man”—as he said this he raised his hand, which was trembling uncontrollably—”and tell it to him again.”

  “All right. All right,” he said. “Where shall I begin?” And then as an aside he whispered, “This is like bedtime stories for boys.”

  “I heard that, boy!”

  “I intended you to,” John said, straight-faced. “So where would you like me to begin?”

  “Deep in the wilderness, at the country home of George Kean.”

  “It was a home in the country,” John corrected, “but not a country home, Sir Charles, as you know that term.”