The Railroad War by Jesse Taylor Croft

way long ago, but he did not remember when or where. It was a gesture that he found attractive.
    “You are also a southerner?” he smiled, answering her by asking her the same question. “And you are fighting for the North
     as well—a conspicuously dangerous choice in this place.”
    She shrugged, her shoulders scarcely moving. She is so
still,
he thought. And yet she was not a helpless woman; she had produced a great deal of valuable information.
    “But, yes,” he said, answering her question, “I’m a southerner, and I’ve chosen the northern side for reasons that satisfy
     me—as I would think you have reasons that satisfy you.” He wanted very much to ask this lady why she’d become an agent for
     General Dodge, but he thought better of it.
    “Thank you,” she said, lowering her head, then throwing it back again. That quick motion amid her stillness became her.
    Where have I seen
that
before? he asked himself.
    “What can I do for you?” she asked. “Why have you come to me today?”
    “General Sherman is most interested,” he said, “in learning whether General Johnston will fight or whether he will slip away.
     And if he plans to try to slip away, when. General Sherman hopes that you will be able to give us answers to these questions.”
    General Joseph Johnston was more famous for retreats than for assaults. This was not to say that he wasn’t a fighter, only
     that he thought of himself as a spider rather than a tiger. He lured his opponent into a net of his own making.
    But Hawken knew that Sherman wanted to fight Johnston sometime during the next couple of days. Hawken’s job in Jackson was
     to discover ways to prevent, or at least delay, a Joe Johnston movement to the east or south.
    “I’ve just come from the train yards,” Hawken went on. “But it’s not clear whether there is movement away from here. If there
     is to be a withdrawal, we must know about it. And we must know when it will come.”
    She looked at him for a long while without speaking. Then she turned away. “Johnston won’t fight Sherman in Jackson,” she
     said in her small voice, still facing away from him. “He plans to move out. He had hoped to complete his move tonight, but
     that has proved impossible. There aren’t enough locomotives and cars to acomplish the job, even with pack animals and wagons
     moving whatever they can handle. He is now hoping to accomplish his action by early tomorrow morning, but it appears that
     noon tomorrow is the earliest it can be done.”
    “Amazing!” he whispered, more at her accomplishment in obtaining the information than at the information itself. “And you’re
     sure of that?” he asked, as he considered the implications of her information. It was not good news.
    “Of course,” she said quietly. “Have my other reports proved accurate?”
    “In every detail,” he acknowledged after a time. Then he shook his head angrily. “Damn!” he said. “I don’t like what you’ve
     told me. Johnston’s acting too soon for us! And that makes problems for me.” Problems that might require him to take action
     on his own, he thought, and he had no idea what actions he could possibly take.
    He caught her eye.
    Her expression was altering now. Her face was sadder, grimmer, with a touch of pleading in it.
    “But tell me,” she asked, louder, “why do you need to know when Johnston is making his move? Isn’t it enough that he is leaving
     at all? Does General Sherman require another battle? Poor Jackson doesn’t require another fight, nor another occupation by
     the Yankee army,” she added.
    “I’m not sure why these things matter to you,” he said carefully.
    “I think it should be obvious why these things interest me,” she said. “You see where I live. And you can understand my interest
     in my own safety.” She smiled a peculiar little smile as she said this. “So it very much behooves me to know when General
     Sherman plans his major assault.”
    He looked