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“Does anybody have a watch?” he asked the room. When he was greeted only with mumbles and the frantic mechanizations of people building fortresses out of luggage, Mercy stopped him.
She asked, “How long do you need to get into place?”
“Five minutes,” he said. “Give us five minutes. Can you guess that pretty good?”
“Yes,” she said, then turned him around and gave him a shove. “Now get moving!”
The whole clot of officials went struggling through the narrow aisle to the back door. Once they were through it, Mercy and Theodora considered the plan.
“There are seven passenger cars,” Mercy counted out. “If everyone from the first and seventh can squeeze into the middle five, that’ll leave the first and last as buffers and won’t crush everyone too badly in the rest. ”
Miss Clay said, “Yes. And we’ll probably even be able to keep the aisles clear, once everyone’s settled. Do you want to go up to the first car, or back to the last one?”
“Um . . . I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. ”
Theodora Clay made a sound of sublime exasperation and held out a coin as if to flip it. She said, “Last car’s closest to where we are, so that’ll be easiest. On the count of three, heads or tails . . . ”
“Tails,” Mercy said, and when heads flashed up, she added, “That’s fine. I’ll work my way up front. You work your way to the rear, and we’ll meet back in the middle. ”
Miss Clay nodded as crisply as any soldier ever clicked to attention.
Mercy grabbed her satchel and threw off her cloak to make her movements easier—never mind the cold between the cars; she could stand it. She checked her guns, and the two women walked into the aisle, narrowly dodging a second wave of uniformed men brandishing weapons. Then they turned different directions, and ran.
Mercy backtracked the way she’d just come, urging people in the central cars into makeshift shelters and reassuring the hysterical that a plan was in place, though she went out of her way to keep from explaining that it was a feeble plan, consisting mostly of the order to “Move!” But a plan kept things from going straight to hell, and the soldiers appeared to appreciate it, going so far as to assist where possible as they polarized themselves forward and aft, setting up defensive positions and barricades in the places where the Confederate raiders seemed most likely to attack.
She met Captain MacGruder back in the first passenger car. When she’d finished herding its occupants into the second car, the captain reached for Mercy’s arm and lured her back into the first one, where his soldiers were holing up and readying themselves. He stood there, struggling to ask her something, and not knowing how to phrase it.
“Can I help you, Captain?” she tried to prompt him.
He said, “It’s only . . . I hope we’re doing the right thing, leaving the passenger cars unguarded. ”
She said, “So do I. ”
“It’s placing a great deal of faith in our enemy . . . ,” he observed.
Mercy agreed, “Perhaps. ” Then she looked about. Seeing no truly unoccupied corners, she led him over to an abandoned compartment and pretended they’d achieved a fragile modicum of privacy. “Sir, let me ask you something. ”
“By all means. ”
“What do they want?”
He said, “I beg your pardon?”
“I may not be an officer, but I’m not an idiot, either. And this train, this trip . . . it’s a big fat pile of horse pucky, and it smells like it, too. ”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, with just enough hesitation to make Mercy quite certain he was lying.
Exasperated, she said, “Look at those machines out there. They’ll be on us at any minute. I’ve never seen anything like them, have you?”
“No, I haven’t. But why would you—?”
“They’re expensive, I bet. Probably made in Texas like all the best war toys, and then shipped up here on one of the Republican rail lines that meets up at the Utah pass. That’s not a cheap thing to do. ”
“Madam, I assure you this is purely a civilian mission—”
“Oh, and I’m your mother!” she almost yelled at him. Again she pointed out the window, to a place where the vehicles were shambling at breakneck speed over the low grassy nubs on the prairie. “Look at them. They know. They know the passengers are a bluff. They’re aiming for the engine and the caboose, or the after-?caboose. And I want you to tell me, Captain MacGruder . . . why?”
The captain stiffened, and said slowly, “As a civilian, none of this is your concern. ”
