Алистер Маклин - Breakheart Pass

Claremont was curt. ‘You’re railway employees, not soldiers. No concern of mine what you do – just so long as you don’t drink too much and drive us off one of the trestle bridges up in those damned mountains.’ He turned to go down the steps, then swung around again. ‘Seen Captain Oakland or Lieutenant Newell?’

‘Both of them, as a matter of fact. Stopped by here to chat to Henry and me, then went into town.’

‘Say where they were going?’

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Thanks, anyway.’ He descended, looked down the train to where Bellew was saddling up his horse and called: ‘Tell the search detail that they are in town.’

Bellew gave a sketchy salute.

O’Brien and Pearce turned away from the bar in the hotel saloon, Pearce stuffing the ‘Wanted’ notices back into their envelope. Both men halted abruptly and turned as a shout of anger came from a distant corner of the room.

At the card table, a very large man, dressed in moleskin trousers and jacket that looked as if they had been inherited from his grandfather, and sporting a magnificent dark red beard, had risen to his feet and was leaning across the table. His right hand held what appeared to be a small cannon, which is not an unfair description of a Peacemaker Colt, while his left pinioned to the surface of the table the left wrist of a man sitting across the table from him. The face of the seated man was shadowed and indistinct, being largely obscured by a high-turned sheepskin collar and a black stetson pulled low on his forehead.

The man with the red beard said: ‘That was once too often, friend.’

Pearce brought up by the table and said mildly: ‘What was once too often, Garritty?’

Garritty advanced the Peacemaker till the muzzle was less than six inches from the seated man’s face. ‘Slippery fingers here, Marshal. Cheating bastard’s taken a hundred and twenty dollars from me in fifteen minutes.’

Pearce glanced briefly over his shoulder, more out of instinct than any curiosity, as the saloon bar door opened and Colonel Claremont entered. Claremont halted briefly, located the current centre of action within two seconds and made his unhesitating way towards it: to play the part of bit player or spectator was not in Claremont’s nature. Pearce returned his attention to Garritty.

‘Maybe he’s just a good player.’

‘Good?’ Garritty appeared to smile but, behind all that russet foliage, his intended expression was almost wholly a matter for conjecture. ‘He’s brilliant – too brilliant by half, I can tell. You won’t forget, Marshal, that I have been playing cards for fifty years now.’

Pearce nodded. ‘You’ve left me the poorer for meeting you across the poker table.’

Garritty twisted the left wrist of the seated man, who struggled hopelessly to resist, but Garritty had more than all the leverage he required. With the back of the left wrist pressed to the table, the cards in the hand were exposed: face-cards all of them, the top being the ace of hearts.

Pearce said: ‘Looks a pretty fair hand to me.’

‘Fair is not the word I’d use.’ Garritty nodded to the deck on the table. ‘About the middle, Marshal …’

Pearce picked up what was left of the pack of cards and ruffled his way through them. Suddenly he stopped and turned up his right hand: another ace of hearts lay there. Pearce laid it face down on the table, took the ace of hearts from the stranger’s hand and laid it, also face down, beside the other. Their backs were identical. Pearce said: ‘Two matching decks. Who provided those?’

‘I’ll give you one guess.’ The overtones in Garritty’s voice were, in all conscience, grim enough: the undertones were considerably worse.

‘An old trick,’ the seated man said. His voice was low but, considering the highly compromising situation in which he found himself, remarkably steady. ‘Somebody put it there. Somebody who knew I had the ace.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Deakin. John Deakin.’

‘Stand up, Deakin.’ The man did so. Pearce moved leisurely round the table until he was face to face with Deakin. Their eyes were on a level. Pearce said: ‘Gun?’

‘No gun.’

‘You surprise me. I should have thought a gun would have been essential for a man like you – for self-defence, if nothing else.’

‘I’m not a man of violence.’

‘I’ve got the feeling you’re going to experience some whether you like it or not.’ With his right hand Pearce lifted the left-hand side of Deakin’s sheepskin coat while with his free hand he delved into the depth of Deakin’s inside lining pocket. After a few seconds’ preliminary exploration he withdrew his left hand and fanned out an interesting variety of aces and face-cards.

‘My, my,’ O’Brien murmured. ‘What’s known as playing it close to the chest.’

Pearce pushed the money lying in front of Deakin across to Garritty, who made no attempt to pick it up. Garritty said harshly: ‘My money is not enough.’

‘I know it isn’t.’ Pearce was being patient. ‘You should have gathered as much from what I said. You know my position, Garritty. Cheating at cards is hardly a Federal offence, so I can’t interfere. But if I see violence taking place before my eyes – well, as the local peace-keeper, I’m bound to interfere. Give me your gun.’

‘My pleasure.’ The ring of ominous satisfaction in Garritty’s voice was there for all to hear. He handed his mammoth pistol across to Pearce, glared at Deakin and jerked his thumb in the direction of the front door. Deakin remained motionless. Garritty rounded the table and repeated the gesture. Deakin made an almost imperceptible motion of the head, but one unmistakably negative. Garritty struck him, backhanded, across the face. There was no reaction. Garritty said: ‘Outside!’

‘I told you,’ Deakin said. ‘I’m not a man of violence.’

Garritty swung viciously and without warning at him. Deakin staggered backwards, caught a chair behind his knees and fell heavily to the floor. Hatless now, he remained as he had fallen, quite conscious and propped on one elbow, but making no attempt to move. Blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. In what must have been an unprecedented effort, every single member of the regular clientele had risen to his feet: together, they pressed forward to get a closer view of the proceedings. The expressions on their faces registered a slow disbelief ultimately giving way to something close to utter contempt. The bright red thread of violence was an integral and unquestionable element of the warp and woof of the frontier way of life: unrequited violence, the meek acceptance of insult or injury without any attempt at physical retaliation, was the ultimate degradation, that of manhood destroyed.

Garritty stared down at the unmoving Deakin in frustrated incredulity, in a steadily increasing anger which was rapidly stripping him of the last vestiges of self-control. Pearce, who had moved forward to forestall Garritty’s next expression of a clearly intended mayhem, was looking oddly puzzled: then the puzzlement was replaced by what seemed an instant realization. Mechanically, almost, as Garritty took a step forward and swung back his right foot with a clearly near-homicidal intent, Pearce also took a step forward and buried a none too gentle right elbow in Garritty’s diaphragm. Garritty, almost retching, gasped in pain and doubled over, both hands clutching his midriff: he was having temporary difficulty in breathing.

Pearce said: ‘I warned you, Garritty. No violence in front of a US Marshal. Any more of this and you’ll be my guest for the night. Not that that’s important now. I’m afraid the matter is out of your hands now.’

Garritty tried to straighten himself, an exercise that clearly provided him with no pleasure at all. His voice, when he finally spoke, was like that of a bull-frog with laryngitis.