But the train we were intended to join had not arrived yet. We were forced to dismount, and we were in the very last place we wanted to be: exposed, in the street, among the common people. And here at the Camden Street Station, despite the late hour, people milled about, waiting on their own various trains to come or to go. I spotted DeForest at work in his navy uniform, moving things from place to place, but I did not approach him, nor did he approach me. We couldn’t even signal to each other. The air was charged, and we couldn’t risk sparking it.
When the train finally did come, the news was bad. As I attempted to direct the joining of the cars, an engineer stepped in. “This car cannot be joined to the others.”
“We were assured it could be.”
“And I am telling you it cannot.”
“I was told so by Mr. Morris.”
He sighed. “Morris won’t be here until the sun rises, and this train will be long gone by then. You must take passage in the train as it is.”
“No, for my brother’s health, isolation is absolutely required.”
I had chosen not to wear a gun for fear it would show—Dolores Mogden would have no reason to arm herself—but at that moment, I wished I’d chosen differently. Things could quickly go wrong, and once they did, it would be nearly impossible to wrestle them into place again.
A conductor interrupted, “Well, the last car is empty.”
The engineer said, “But they don’t have tickets for that car.”
“Well, what is she supposed to do otherwise?”
“Wait for the next train.”
I said, “We can’t do that.”
The conductor said, “Just wait a minute. I’ll try to find someone else who can straighten this out.”
I wanted to shout, but everything depended on not shouting. “No,” I said firmly. “You’re right. We’ll take the empty car. We’ll go to the back, and we’ll go now.”
“Ma’am, I don’t think…”
“We’ll go now,” I said and strode forward. As I walked, I breathed, focusing on every breath in, every breath out. Each time I drew breath, I expected to feel something. A firm hand on my shoulder. A man’s fingers grabbing my arm. A bullet in my back even. But miraculously, wonderfully, each time I let the breath out, I was still alive and unmolested. Even as I stepped into the car and placed both hands on the handles of Lincoln’s wheelchair—not a word, I whispered—no one put a hand on me, and we were heading toward an empty car we would claim for our own.
Then, even more wonderfully, we were aboard. A porter handed the luggage up to me through the open door—I saw DeForest’s mustache under the uniform cap—and I knew we had done what was needed.
I wheeled my disguised companion far enough into the final sleeping car to know that no one could see us from the outside. I pulled the curtains over the windows.
“Is this it?” he asked.
I held a finger up, and we waited in silence together. The train hummed to life beneath us. And with joy, I felt the train lurch forward on the track, its engine pulsing, the clickety-clack sound speeding faster and faster as the train shot into the night, southward toward Washington.
With satisfaction, I told him, “Go ahead and rise.”
He did, unfolding, and stretched his long legs. It must have been quite a relief. He sighed, long and low, and I could only think of how hard this had to be for him, how deeply against his nature. He only wanted to be open and straightforward, and all this skulking was the opposite. But we all knew what was at stake if we didn’t deliver him safely.
“Sir,” I said, but he interrupted me.
“Jacky,” he said.
“Jacky,” I said, smiling a little for the first time in what felt like weeks, “I think you can rest now. Good night.”
He lay down on a lower bunk, a slim pallet far too short for his size, and drew his knees up with another sigh. I knew he wasn’t quiet in his heart—who could be, given the danger?—but he also had to be utterly exhausted. I hoped he might have a moment’s peace.
For me, there would be none. I closed the door to the compartment and locked it behind me. I reached under the wheelchair frame and carefully dislodged the shotgun we had secreted there. Then I set my chair square in front of the locked door, lay the shotgun across my knees, and readied myself to wait out the night.
Chapter Twenty
We Never Sleep
Whatever my level of tiredness should have been, I felt no exhaustion, no temptation to close my eyes. I had never been so awake in my life. My aim was not as good with a shotgun as with a pistol, but in the close quarters of a railcar corridor, it would hardly matter.
I counted off the minutes in my head as we went, and with every minute that slipped into the past forever, my hope for success grew and grew. I had not imagined we would succeed, but neither had I imagined we could fail. I kept my mind on the next ten-minute interval, and I kept my eyes wide open. The dark world whooshed past outside the curtains of the closed windows. There was no scenery, no sound, nothing to distract my attention. If an assassin appeared, I was dead certain he would find himself no match for me.
We arrived in Washington with the sunrise.
As soon as the motion of the train had stilled, I opened the door to the outside a mere crack and put one open eye against it. We had planned every detail, but this was the last moment where things could go wrong. Would I see Pinkerton? Armed soldiers? No one at all? We only needed to get to Willard’s Hotel, and then all would be well.
I scanned the crowd. As one would expect at any train station, there were tears and embraces, nervous-looking couples waiting in silence, children in their Sunday best. There were soldiers galore, but they bustled about without pattern, and none had guns aimed in our direction.
Then I saw two familiar men, and I wanted to sob with relief. Only a surge of pride kept me upright and dry-eyed. I would not collapse in front of Tim Bellamy, not when I knew he had survived his own trials, surrounded by the enemy. The other man was Ward Hill Lamon, grinning brightly under his prodigious brown beard.