Алистер Маклин - Breakheart Pass

‘You will in a moment. He dropped off to attend to some urgent business.’

O’Brien peered ahead through the cab window where the western exit of Breakheart Pass could be seen coming up. Suddenly, to obtain a better view, he leaned out through the footplate entrance. Beyond question, there was a body lying on the track ahead: equally beyond question, the body was that of Pearce. O’Brien swore and jumped for the steam throttle and brake.

The train juddered to a halt. O’Brien and White Hand jumped down, ran forward, then stopped, grim-faced, at the spectacle of the crumpled, bleeding and still very unconscious Pearce. As one, both men lifted their eyes and looked about thirty yards ahead. Above a hole blown in the rail-bed, a sleeper was twisted and a rail badly buckled.

White Hand said softly: ‘Deakin will die for this.’

O’Brien looked at him for a long moment, then said sombrely: ‘Not if he sees you first, White Hand.’

‘White Hand fears no man.’

‘Then you’d better learn to fear this one. He is a United States Federal agent. In your own language, he has the cunning of a serpent and the luck of the devil. Marshal Pearce can count himself lucky that Deakin did not choose to kill him. Come, let us repair this track.’

Under O’Brien’s direction it took the Paiutes all of twenty minutes to effect the repair. They worked in two gangs – one removing the damaged section of the track, another freeing a sound section to the rear of the train. The damaged section was thrown down the embankment while the undamaged section was brought forward from the rear and fitted in its place. Bedding down the sleepers and aligning the track was no job for unskilled amateurs but eventually O’Brien was satisfied that, jerry-built though the improvisation was, it might just bear the weight of the train. During the operation a groaning Pearce, his back propped against the cow-catcher, slowly regained consciousness, supported by a solicitous Henry who constantly dabbed a cheek and temple already badly cut and spectacularly bruised.

‘We go now,’ O’Brien said. The Paiutes, Pearce and Henry went back into the main body of the train while White Hand rejoined O’Brien in the cab. O’Brien released the brake and opened the throttle very gently indeed, at the same time peering out gingerly over the side. As the locomotive wheels reached the new section of the track the line dipped slightly but not dangerously. When the last of the coaches had passed over the damaged area O’Brien returned to the controls and opened the throttles wide.

Deakin, Claremont and Marica had stopped, all three still on horseback. Deakin was swiftly rebandaging Claremont’s gory hand.

Claremont said urgently: ‘Minutes count, man! We’re losing time.’

‘We’ll lose you if we don’t stop this bleeding.’ He glanced at Marica, who with set face and lips compressed against the pain, held her left wrist tightly in her right hand. ‘How’s it going?’

‘I’ll be all right.’

Deakin looked at her briefly, without expression, then resumed the rebandaging. They had scarcely moved on when he looked at her again. She was slumped in the saddle, her head bowed. He said: ‘Is your wrist that bad?’

‘It’s my ankle. I can’t put my foot in the stirrup.’ Deakin moved round to the other side of her horse. Her left leg was dangling clear of the stirrup. He looked away, turned around and glanced upward over his right shoulder. The snow was gone and the clouds drifting away to leave the washed-out blue of the sky; the sun was appearing over the shoulder of a mountain. Again, he looked at Marica: with ankle and wrist out of commission she was now scarcely able to maintain her seat in the saddle. He pulled in close to her horse, lifted her across to his own, took the reins of the now riderless horse in his free hand and urged both animals into a rapid canter. Claremont, who looked in no better case than Marica, followed close behind. They were now paralleling the line of the railway track. The ground there was flat and relatively free from snow and they made comparatively good time.

Sepp Calhoun was in his usual place, the Commandant’s chair, with his feet in their usual position, the Commandant’s table, pursuing his usual custom which was drinking the Commandant’s whisky and smoking one of his cheroots. The only other occupant of the room was Colonel Fairchild, who sat on a straight deal chair and had his wrists bound behind him. The door opened and a scruffy and very swarthy white man entered.

Calhoun said genially: ‘All right, Carmody?’

‘Fixed. The telegraphists are locked up with the rest. Benson is at the gate. Harris is fixing some grub.’

‘Fine. Just time for a snack before our friends arrive. Less than an hour, I should say.’ He grinned mockingly at Fairchild. ‘The battle of Breakheart Pass belongs to history now, Colonel.’ He smiled even more broadly. ‘I guess “massacre” is the word I’m looking for.’

In the supply wagon a still badly battered but much recovered Pearce was busy handing out repeaters and ammunition to the Paiutes who crowded round him. There was no sign of the traditional Indian reserve. They chattered and smiled and their eyes shone, children transported by their new toys. Pearce made his way forward and clambered into the tender, three Winchester repeaters under his arm. He passed into the cab and handed one to White Hand.

‘A present for you, White Hand.’

The Indian smiled. ‘You are a man of your word, Marshal Pearce.’

Pearce made to smile but his face at once felt so painful that he rapidly thought better of it. Instead he said: ‘Twenty minutes. Not more than twenty minutes.’

Deakin had fifteen minutes on them. Momentarily he halted the horses and gazed ahead. The bridge over the ravine was no more than half a mile away; immediately beyond that lay the Fort Humboldt compound. He helped Marica on to her own horse and motioned for both her and Claremont to precede him. He drew his pistol and held it in his hand. In now brilliant sunshine the three horses picked their delicate way across the trestle bridge that spanned the ravine and cantered up to the compound gate. Benson, the guard, a man with a dull, stupid, brutalized face, moved out to intercept them, cocked rifle ready in his hands.

‘Who are you?’ His voice was slurred with a mixture of truculence and alcohol. ‘What’s your business at Fort Humboldt?’

‘Not with you.’ Deakin’s voice was bleak, authoritative. ‘Sepp Calhoun. Quickly!’

‘Who you got there?’

‘Are you blind? Prisoners. From the train.’

‘From the train?’ Benson nodded uncertainly, whatever mental processes he had clearly in temporary abeyance. ‘You’d better come.’

Benson led them across the compound. As they approached the Commandant’s office the door opened and Calhoun appeared, a gun in either hand. He said savagely: ‘Who the hell you got there, Benson?’

‘Says they’re from the train, boss.’

Deakin ignored both Calhoun and Benson and moved his pistol in the direction of Claremont and Marica. ‘Get down, you two.’ He turned to Calhoun. ‘You Calhoun? Let’s talk inside.’

Calhoun levelled both pistols at Deakin. ‘Uhuh. Too fast, mister. Who are you?’

Deakin said in weary exasperation. ‘John Deakin. Nathan Pearce sent me.’

‘So you say.’

‘So they say.’ He nodded to the now dismounted and clearly sick Claremont and Marica. ‘My passport. Hostages. Safe-conduct. Call them what you like. Nathan said I was to take them for proof.’

A shade less aggressively Calhoun said: ‘I’ve seen passports in better shape.’

‘They tried to be clever. Meet Colonel Claremont, the relief Commandant. And Miss Marica Fairchild – the present Commandant’s daughter.’