The Railroad War
Authors: Jesse Taylor Croft
A train ride to triumph and tears—unforgettable men and women whose destination is a place forever in our hearts
SAM HOUSTON HAWKEN.
An iron-willed young Texan, this intrepid Union officer would risk his life to stop the Confederate train speeding toward
Atlanta—and reach the beautiful Southern belle he loved.
MIRANDA KEMBLE.
Feisty daughter of one of Georgia’s wealthiest families, this stunningly beautiful woman would have to take on a man’s job
when her father died—and watch her lover fight against her country.
NOAH BALLARD.
A man of the New South, his vision of a glorious future depended on one vital mission—to beat both man and nature to get
the Confederacy’s last train from Mississippi to Atlanta.
FANNY SHAW.
A sophisticated and sensual British actress, her outrage against slavery derailed her marriage to powerful Pierce Kemble,
but joined her heart with another Kemble—one as dangerous as he was rich.
LAMAR KEMBLE.
Proud son of the Southern aristocracy, this handsome cavalry officer was sent to stop the Yankees’ train—in what would become
a violent confrontation between friendship and loyalty to the land he loved.
THE TRAINMASTERS
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First eBook Edition: September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56704-6
Contents
June 1856
“I am
trying
to speak to you,
Miss
Miranda Kemble,” Ariel Kemble, eighteen, said to her sister, who was three years her junior. “I have spoken to you four times,
Miranda,” Ariel went on more insistently, “and you didn’t even look at me once, much less answer me.” Then with a louder voice:
“Miranda! Miranda!” But Miranda kept her face turned to the open window. Her gaze had been unwavering since the moment the
train had left New York City. Though Ariel was less cross with Miranda than exasperated, she feigned serious anger because
her sister’s attention was in fact important to her.
The sisters, together with their father, Pierce, and their uncle Ashbel were journeying on the Hudson line to Garrison’s Landing,
the hamlet that served as the station stop for West Point, which was across the river. The United States Military Academy
was located at West Point, and their brother, Lamar, was graduating this week from that illustrious institution. Ariel, Miranda,
and their father had traveled all the way from Georgia to participate in the ceremonies. Uncle Ashbel had joined them in New
York City.
The two men were seated just ahead of the girls. Unlike Ariel and Miranda, they were engaged in vigorous conversation. Pierce
Kemble was usually excited and voluble, his head nodding with energy and enthusiasm, his face flushed as he spoke. Ashbel
was atypically the listener.
Pierce’s excitement had much justification. He was more than $350,000 richer than he had been only a week before, although
much of that $350,000 was already spoken for since Pierce Kemble had incurred substantial long-term debts. Nevertheless, $350,000
was a vast sum, and it was his.
The train was only a few miles from Garrison’s Landing. Ariel needed to speak to Miranda soon if she were to get her business
over with before the excitement of their arrival. It was, however, a delicate situation.
“Miranda!” Ariel repeated, for what she was sure was the millionth time. Then she reached over and shook her sister’s shoulder.
After a long moment, Miranda, lazily turning her gaze from the window and the rugged, lovely landscape beyond it, fixed her
eyes on Ariel, who was in the aisle seat next to her. Ariel’s lips were pressed tight, her brow was rigid, and her eyelids
were lowered to a most ominous half-mast. Seeing this, Miranda let her own face brighten into her most radiant, most charming,
most winning smile.
“You were saying something, dear?” she said sweetly.
“I’ve been trying to say something to you for
hours,”
Ariel said. “And you have pretended not to hear me.”
“Oh, that can’t be true, Ariel. We’ve not been on the train for hours, and I’ve only been admiring the view for a short while.”
“Must you be so literal?” Ariel said, her exasperation growing. She hated when Miranda played the innocent. In Ariel’s opinion,
her sister was never,
never
innocent. For Miranda, tricks and mischief came more naturally than sleep, especially when Ariel was the target. Which was
the main reason why Ariel wanted to conclude her business with Miranda before they left the train. In the restricted setting
of a passenger car, Miranda was on her best behavior. Heaven only knew what deviltry she’d find to wallow in once the ferry
brought them to West Point, with its dozens of unattached young men for an audience.
“Isn’t the river beautiful?” Miranda was exclaiming, changing the conversation to her liking. As she spoke, she lifted her
hands high above her lap, where they had been resting, and opened her palms reverently to the scene outside the window. “The
hills, and cliffs, and bluffs… I’ve never seen anything so achingly lovely, have you, dearest?”
The train was passing through one of the most delightful scenes on the river. Just north of Peekskill, near Bear Mountain,
the river narrowed into a rocky gorge. Rough, bouldered hills strained against one another, then tumbled down sheer flanks
to the river edge.
“It’s so fierce looking out there,” Miranda continued, attempting, Ariel was convinced, to use the beauties of the landscape
to avoid hearing what her sister had to say. “And yet it all seems to be moving—almost to flow. And we seem to be standing
still.”
Ariel glanced sourly out of the open window. It was the noise and the jolting discomfort of the train and the grit and ashes
drifting inexorably in more than the scenery that excited her attention. And distaste. The train’s rattles, creaks, and metallic
cracks and bangs made the trip feel to Ariel more like a punishment than a purposeful and speedy progress toward a destination.
Even the breeze from outside was no pleasure to her. It destroyed her hair. And infinitely worse, it grimed her gorgeous new
clothes, which were a small portion of the glorious abundance of new things their father had during the past week bought for
them at the most fashionable clothing emporia of New York. Their luggage was all but overflowing with the newest New York
and Paris fashions.
Miranda, contrarily, indifferent to the dirt, adored the breeze; she reveled in the wind rushing against her face and through
her sherry-colored hair, lifting it, making it fly.
“If the train weren’t lurching and jostling,” Ariel grumbled, “and if it weren’t so filthy, and if I weren’t so uncomfortable
in it, I could perhaps look with pleasure at the countryside.” As she spoke, she dabbed with her handkerchief at the soot
on her face.
Miranda gave her a sharp stare, followed shortly by a darling smile. She didn’t like her sister to contradict her when she
was off on one of her imaginative flights, but since at the moment she was playing innocent, she decided she shouldn’t step
out of character.
And then the train plunged into a tunnel.
“Oh!” she yelped.
“It’s only a tunnel,” Ariel explained without either concern or patience.
A moment later they were out of it, and Miranda was smiling again. “You were saying?” she said, as if it were her sister and
not Miranda herself who was keeping Ariel from getting on with her urgent business.
“I want you to do something for me,” Ariel said, catching her sister’s eye. Miranda’s irises were a devious yet penetrating
green, with yellow catlike flecks.
“Just tell me what it is,” Miranda said guilelessly.
Ariel gave her a long look. “While we’re at the Academy,” she said finally, carefully, “I’d like it that…” She turned her
eyes away for a second. And then: “It’s about my engagement to Ben Edge.”
Ariel was scheduled to marry Ben Edge of Virginia early in September. He was a fine, and very wealthy, young man. It was a
good match, as Ariel well knew.
“Your engagement?” Miranda repeated, urging Ariel to continue, her mouth slipping into a somewhat less innocent smile. Miranda
could guess what was on her sister’s mind.
“That’s right,” Ariel said. She looked into Miranda’s eyes again. “I think it might be best if we… kept the knowledge of it
out of…”
“You don’t want the boys at West Point to know you are about to be married?” Miranda said.
“That’s right, Miranda,” Ariel sighed, relieved she didn’t have to actually say the words, for she was in fact a bit ashamed
of herself. She
did
love Ben Edge, but she was not going to deprive herself of a few pleasant days with other handsome young men.
“Oh, my,” Miranda said innocently, “I don’t know if I could do that!”
“Why not?” Ariel said in a rush.
“Well,” Miranda said, “what about Father and Uncle? And what about Lam?” Lam was their brother Lamar’s nickname.
“I’ve already talked to Father and Uncle Ashbel, and I can deal with Lamar.”
“You’ve already talked to Father? And he is going along with your”—she smiled sweetly—“lies?”
“Oh, come,” Ariel said. “It’s no lie. It’s simply a”—she searched for the word—“a little piece of ‘practical diplomacy,’ as
Daddy himself calls it.”
“That’s what he said when you told him?”
“That’s right.”
“Sounds like him,” Miranda said with a shake of her head.
“And then he said, ‘We aren’t lying when we don’t report the truth fully. We’re just being smart. Only a fool tells the whole
truth.’ “
“And what if Lam has already told all the other men at the Academy?”
“I told you that I would deal with Lam later. Now I’m dealing with you.”
“All right,” Miranda said with a quick, decisive nod.
“What do you mean, ‘All right’?” Ariel blurted. “Do you really mean yes, you’ll do it?” She was astonished that Miranda might
have been won over without a longer fight.
“Of course I’ll do it for you, darling. There’s no harm done in something like that”—she lifted her head and glanced sideways
at Ariel—“is there?” When she finished these words, Miranda leaned over and kissed her sister on the cheek.
“Thank you,” Ariel said, returning the kiss. “Thank you
so
much. That will be
such
a relief to me. I just want to make my stay at the Academy… uncomplicated.”
“I’m sure you do,” Miranda said. Then she laughed. “And what did Uncle Ashbel tell you when you told him what you wanted to
do?”
“Uncle Ashbel? Oh, you know him,” Ariel said, giggling nervously.
Uncle Ashbel could be counted on to have a witty, sophisticated opinion on every subject under the sun. Unlike most sons of
the South, he was a traveler. He’d journeyed everywhere, from Shanghai to Cape Town, from Patagonia to Vladivostok, and up
every river that the girls had ever heard of.
He was full of shocking and delicious tales about the nearly naked and very willing girls of the South Pacific and the equally
willing and even more naked girls of West Africa. He told them about the golden idols of Peru, the elegant and amusing thieves
in Morocco, the ruthless British opium traders in Hong Kong, and the jungle-shrouded pyramids in the Yucatan. The two nieces
only half believed his outlandish claims.
Their skepticism was in fact mostly justified, although there was more than a grain of truth in Ashbel’s tales. He was an
international trader who owned enough ships to make him quite wealthy and allow him to travel to exotic ports.
Besides, it wasn’t the truth of Uncle Ashbel’s stories that counted, it was his style.
Then Ashbel Kemble himself, craning over the seat back ahead of the girls, was facing Ariel and Miranda. “I heard my name
spoken in vain,” he said with a warm look. He liked his two nieces very much.
“We’d
never
speak your name in vain, Uncle,” Ariel said.
He laughed. “I suppose not,” he said. “At least not when I can hear you. You both want too much from me.”
“Uncle!” they both said as one.
“Well,” he said, “I did hear my name. What do you hungry tigresses want now?”