Алистер Маклин - Breakheart Pass

‘Don’t worry,’ Deakin said comfortingly. ‘We’ll think of something.’

Marica looked at him with a coldly appraising eye. ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something, Mr Deakin.’

‘As a matter of fact, I already have.’

The aptly named Breakheart Pass, a barren and waterless gully, carried the railway line up to a small divide. The left or southern hand of the gully was bordered by an almost vertical cliff; the right-hand side by a fairly shallow slope leading down to the long dead watercourse, a course liberally strewn with large boulders which offered splendid cover – splendid, that was, for men but quite useless for horses. The nearest shelter of any other kind was offered by a thick clump of pines a mile distant across the valley. It was within the confines of this copse that White Hand waved his weary troop of horsemen to a grateful halt.

White Hand dismounted. He pointed to the boulder-strewn gully. ‘There the train will stop. There we will hide. We must go there on foot.’ He turned to two of his men. ‘The horses. Keep them here. Take them even deeper into the woods. They must not be seen.’

In the dining compartment of the train Henry sat by the wood stove, drowsing. Fairchild, O’Brien and Pearce, seated and with their heads resting on their forearms, were asleep or appeared to be asleep over the dining tables. On the footplate, Deakin, very far from being asleep, was peering ahead through the cab window; snow was still falling and the visibility was poor. Marica, equally wide awake, was making the final adjustments to the white sheet which was so wrapped round Colonel Claremont that, his unencumbered arms apart, he appeared to be cocooned from head to foot. Deakin beckoned to him and pointed ahead.

‘Breakheart Pass coming up. Maybe two miles to go. For you, one mile. See that big clump of pines to the right of the track?’ Claremont nodded. ‘They’ll have hidden their horses there. There’ll be guards.’ He nodded to Rafferty’s rifle which Claremont held in his hands. ‘ Don’t give them a sporting chance. Don’t give them an even break.’

Claremont shook his head slowly and said nothing. His face was no less implacable than that of Deakin.

White Hand and another Indian were crouched behind a craggy rock on the boulder-strewn righthand slope of the gully. They were staring down towards the lower, easternmost entrance to the pass. The thinly falling snow let them see as far as the furthest bend of the track; so far there was nothing to be seen. Suddenly the other Indian reached out and touched White Hand on the shoulder. Both men turned their heads slightly and adopted an intensely listening attitude. Far off, faintly but unmistakably, the puffing of a straining locomotive engine could be heard. White Hand glanced at his companion and nodded, just once.

Deakin reached under his coat and brought out the two sticks of blasting powder he had earlier filched from the supply wagon. One of these he carefully placed inside the tool-box, the other he held in his hand. With his free hand he gently eased the steam throttle all the way off. At once, the train began to slow down.

O’Brien woke with a start, moved swiftly to the nearest window, hastily cleared away the condensation and peered out. Almost at once he turned to Pearce.

‘Wake up! Wake up! We’re stopping! Nathan, know where we are?’

‘Breakheart Pass.’ The two men looked questioningly at one another. Fairchild stirred, sat upright and came to the window. He said uneasily: ‘What’s that devil up to now?’

Deakin was indeed up to something. With the train now almost brought to a complete standstill, he ignited the tube of blasting powder in his hand, judged his moment to what he regarded as a nicety, then tossed it out of the right-hand cab opening. At the same moment Claremont moved on to the steps of the left-hand side of the cab. Pearce, O’Brien, Fairchild and Henry, all with their faces pressed to the window, recoiled involuntarily and threw up defensive hands as there came a blinding flash of light and the flat sharp crack of an explosion immediately outside. The window did not shatter and after a moment or two they pressed close to it again. But by this time Claremont had dropped off the left-hand side of the cab, rolled down the embankment and come to rest at its foot. Wrapped in the white sheeting, he was almost entirely invisible and remained quite motionless. Deakin jerked the throttle open again.

The bafflement of the four men in the dining compartment was of a lesser nature altogether than that of White Hand and his Indian companion. White Hand said uncertainly: ‘It may be that our friends wanted to warn us of their approach. See, they are moving again.’

‘Yes. And I see something else.’ The other Indian jumped to his feet. ‘The troop wagons! The soldier wagons! They’re not there!’

‘Get down, fool!’ White Hand’s habitual impassivity had, for the moment, completely deserted him. His face was baffled, uncomprehending, as he saw that the train, now well into Breakheart Pass, clearly consisted of no more than three coaches.

O’Brien’s face was now equally uncomprehending. He said: ‘How the hell should I know what he’s up to? The man’s a lunatic.’

Fairchild said: ‘You could try to find out, couldn’t you?’

Pearce handed Fairchild one of his guns. ‘Tell you what, Governor. You find out.’

The Governor grabbed the gun. For that brief passing moment he was clearly out of his mind. ‘Very well, then. I shall.’

He took the gun, moved forward, opened the front door of the leading coach no more than a crack and slid an apprehensive eye round the edge. A second later there was the boom of a Colt and a bullet struck the coach less than a foot from his head: Fairchild withdrew with speed, banging the door behind him, his momentary period of insanity clearly behind him. Severely shaken, he re-entered the dining compartment.

Pearce said: ‘Well, what did you find out?’

The Governor said nothing. He threw the gun on the table and made for the whisky bottle.

Up front, Deakin said: ‘Company?’

‘My uncle.’ Marica examined the still smoking Colt with aversion.

‘Get him?’

‘No.’

‘Pity.’

Claremont, still swathed in his white camouflage, inched slowly towards the edge of the embankment and hitched a wary eye over the top. The train, almost a mile away by that time, was well into the pass. He scanned the boulders in the dry watercourse ahead but could detect no sign of movement. He had not expected to see any, not yet; White Hand was far too experienced to make his presence known until the last moment possible. Claremont then looked across the valley to the distant clump of pine trees. If Deakin were right and horses there were, that was where the horses would be held in concealment; and Claremont no longer questioned Deakin’s judgment. The approach to the pines would be difficult but not impossible: a smaller branching watercourse led up to the very edge of the copse and if he could reach the foot of this dry gully unobserved he should be under concealment for the rest of the way. The only danger lay in crossing the railway line, and while he was far too experienced a soldier to discount the possibility of any danger, he thought that the odds on a safe traverse of the track lay in his favour. The guard or guards in charge of the horses would, in the normal course of events, be taking a lively interest in what was happening, or what was about to happen across the valley. But their attention would almost certainly be fixed on the train and the hidden Paiutes and those were now a mile away to his left. Besides, it was still only dawn and the snow had not yet ceased to fall. Claremont did not hesitate, if for no other reason than that he knew that there were no options left open to him. Wraith-like, and using only his elbows and knees, he began to slither across the track.