The train was a blazing wreck, its engine derailed and cars destroyed, but the bridge, which had been the object of the raid, still stood. The fuse had failed to detonate the gunpowder, probably because the powder was damp, while the fire, which had been supposed to dry the powder and then explode it if the fuse failed, now seemed to be succumbing to wet fuel and wind-driven rain. “If you had obeyed my orders,” the Colonel charged Starbuck bitterly, “there would have been time to reset the charges.”

“Me, sir?” Starbuck was astonished at the unfairness of the accusation.

Captain Hinton was equally surprised by the Colonel’s words. “I told you, Faulconer, it was my fault.”

“I didn’t give you the order, Hinton. I gave it to Starbuck, and the order was disobeyed.” Faulconer spoke in a cold, clipped fury, then twisted his horse away and raked back with his spurs. The horse whinnied and started abruptly forward.

“Goddamn Yankee,” Sergeant Medlicott said softly, then followed Faulconer.

“Forget them, Nate,” Hinton said. “It wasn’t your fault. I’ll square the Colonel for you.”

Starbuck still could not believe that he was being blamed for the failure of the attack. He sat dumbstruck, appalled at the Colonel’s unfairness. Down on the rail line, unaware that a handful of the raiders still lingered above them, some of the train’s passengers were edging out onto the undamaged trestle while others had begun to pull the barricade clear of the broken tracks. The fire in the gorge seemed to have gone out completely.

“He’s used to getting his own way.” Truslow pulled his horse alongside Starbuck. “He thinks he can buy what he wants and have it perfect, right from the start.”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“You didn’t have to. He wants someone to blame. And he reckons that if he pisses all over you, then you won’t piss back at him. That’s why he chose you. He wasn’t going to piss on me, was he?” Truslow spurred on.

Starbuck looked back to the gorge. The bridge was undamaged and the cavalry raid, which had been intended as a glorious victory to launch the Legion’s triumphant crusade, had turned into a muddled, rain-soaked farce. And Starbuck was being blamed.

“Goddamn it,” he swore aloud, defying his God, then turned and followed Truslow south.

“Can this really be it?” Belvedere Delaney had a four-day-old copy of the Wheeling Intelligencer that had been brought to Richmond from Harper’s Ferry. The Intelligencer, though a Virginian paper, was soundly pro-Union.

“What?” Ethan Ridley was distracted and utterly uninterested in whatever the newspaper might have reported.