Chapter 1
November 1st, Tuesday, midafternoon.Price, John. Lieutenant, Tenth Kentucky Calvary. Army of the Confederacy.
Wounded in head and left leg. Morgan's Raider. Paymaster, Lucifer.
David Corwin was compact, small in stature. He set his newspaper aside on the seat next to him and moved down the aisle to the door, balancing himself against the rocking with his hand on the seat backs. At the door he stretched, as if that were his only purpose for rising. When the train rolled into Catskill Station, he casually slipped out the door.
At the back of the car a second man, just as casually, got to his feet, adjusted his hat, and followed Corwin. The man jumped to the gravel. Except for the stationmaster with his red flag, he was the only one to be seen on the ground. Where'd the little bastard go? A quick gust snatched his broad-brimmed black hat, spinning it in the air, then slamming it to the gravel.
"Damn," the man said, retrieving the hat, but still seeking his prey. He dusted his hat on his long coat and squared it on his head.
The train whistle wailed, shattering the quiet pastoral scene. The conductor, master of his domain, blew his own sharp whistle. "'Board! All aboard for Manhattan, Thirtieth Street Station." In this manner, the train left Catskill Station. "Next stop, Germantown. Germantown, next stop."
The train picked up speed. The man who had followed Corwin swung himself aboard. After a quick inspection of his hat and coat and the knife sheathed in his boot, he strode down the aisle, plucking up the newspaper Corwin had left, and continued to his own seat at the back of the car.
He didn't notice the man in the herringbone mackinaw and spectacles.
And neither man saw the youth who was watching them both.
In a ditch, not three yards from the tracks, among a
patch
of yellow weeds, Corwin lay, legs bent like broken twigs,
throat
cut from ear to ear. A lucifer friction match was jammed
between
his clamped teeth.
