Clive Cussler: The Chase

“I’m glad you approve,” Cromwell said conversationally.

Bell smiled in narrow-eyed guardedness without lowering his Colt. He glanced at the leather trunks lined against one wall. “The cash from your bank. Must be an impressive amount.”

“Enough to initiate a new enterprise,” Cromwell answered cordially.

“You followed us?” Margaret said, baffled and incredulous. It was more a question than a statement.

“Not exactly followed,” Bell said curtly. “More like chased.”

Predictably, Cromwell recovered his composure. “How did you arrive so quickly?”

“Fortunately, I had a faster engine and dedicated crewmen.”

“You knew Margaret and I left San Francisco?”

“I tracked down this freight car and figured you had it repainted with a new serial number. My agents had it under surveillance, waiting for the moment when you would use it again. Unfortunately, the earthquake came and my agents had more-pressing duties elsewhere.”

“And you discovered that it had left the railyard,” Cromwell assumed.

Bell nodded. “Only after I went to your bank and saw that you had cleaned out the vault of all large-currency bills.”

“But how could you have known we were heading for Canada?”

“The dispatcher at the Southern Pacific office,” Bell said, lying so as not to involve Marion. “I put a gun to his head and persuaded him to tell me what tracks your chartered train was traveling. Then it was only a matter of filling in the cracks.”

“Very ingenious, Mr. Bell.” Cromwell, champagne glass in hand, stared at Bell appraisingly. “It seems I have a penchant for underestimating you.”

“I’ve misjudged you a time or two.”

Margaret spoke in a tone barely above a whisper. “What do you intend to do?” Her shock had turned to desperation.

“Hold your brother for the local sheriff after we reach shore. Then assemble the necessary papers to escort the two of you to Chicago, where he’ll have a speedy trial without a fixed jury of your old pals and hang for his crimes.” Bell’s smile turned cold and his voice ominous. “And you, dear Margaret, will probably spend the best years of your life in a federal jail.”

Bell caught the exchange of knowing looks between Cromwell and Margaret. He could only wonder what they were thinking, but he was pretty sure it didn’t bode well. He watched as Cromwell sank into one end of an ornate couch.

“Our voyage may take a while in this weather.” As if to accent his statement, the bottle of champagne slid off its table and onto the floor. “A pity. I was going to offer you a drink.”

Bell could only guess where Cromwell kept his Colt .38. “I never drink while on duty,” Bell said facetiously.

The car took another sudden lurch as the ferry tipped over to one side, the entire hull vibrating as one of the paddle wheels thrashed out of the water. Margaret gasped in fear and stared at the water that was seeping in widening puddles along the bottom of the freight door.

OUTSIDE, the wind shrieked, and the Kalispell creaked and groaned against the onslaught of the mounting waves that rolled down the length of Flathead Lake. The tired old vessel burrowed her bow into the gale-driven crests before dropping sickeningly into the troughs. A towering wave broke out the forward windows, sending sheets of water into the wheelhouse.

Captain Boss pulled up his coat collar and grasped the helm desperately as the gale lashed him with spray that stung the skin of his face and hands.

A whistle shrilled through the speaking tube from the engine room. Boss picked it up, said, “Wheelhouse.”

Ragan’s voice came with a hollow tone through the tube. “I’m taking water down here, Captain.”

“Can the pumps handle it?”

“So far. But the hull is creaking something awful. I fear the bulkheads might give way.”

“Get ready to clear out if it gets bad. Make your way to the roof over the galley and unlash the raft.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Ragan. “What about you, Captain?”

“Call me when you leave the engine room. I’ll follow if I can.”

“What about the people on the train? We can’t just abandon them.”

Boss was a man with moral depth, a God-fearing man of great inner strength from the old school whose word was his bond. He was well respected by all who lived around the lake. He gazed through the broken wheelhouse window at the far shore and the mad water thrashing over the bow and felt certain the Kalispell was not going to make it.

“They’re my responsibility,” he said slowly. “You save yourself.”

“God bless you, Captain.”

Then the tube went silent.

THE TORNADO WINDS OF THE CHINOOK WERE THE most destructive in memory. Barns were flattened, roofs carried away, trees ripped by their roots, and telegraph and telephone lines downed. The full force of the warm winds roared over Flathead Lake and flogged the water into a swirling turbulence that battered the weary old Kalispell unmercifully as she wallowed in the valleys between the waves. Already, the lifeboat that Captain Boss had hoped would save lives had been torn from its lashed mounting and shattered, its wreckage swept into the restless water.

Boss struggled with the helm in a desperate attempt to keep the Kalispell on a straight course toward the west shoreline, now only two miles away. He nurtured a slim hope that they might reach the safety of the little harbor of Rollins, but, deep inside, he knew the odds were stacked against him and his boat. There was a constant danger the ferry might swing. The engine, tender, and freight car were the straws that would break the camel’s back.

Without their weight, the Kalispell might have ridden higher in the water and not have suffered as badly from the huge waves that swept across her lowered track deck. Boss looked down at the bow and saw that it was badly damaged. Timbers on the exposed part of the bow were being smashed and torn from their beams.

His clothes and lumberman’s coat soaked through to his skin, Boss grimly took one hand off the wheel, held the speaking tube to his mouth, and whistled. There was a lag of nearly thirty seconds before Ragan answered.

“Yes, Captain?”

“How does it look down there?”

“I’ve got good steam, but the water is still rising.” Ragan’s voice was tinged with fear. “It’s over my ankles.”

“When it gets to your knees, get out of there,” Boss ordered him.

“Do you still want me to unlash the boat?” Ragan asked anxiously.

“You don’t have to bother,” Boss said bitterly. “It’s been swept away.”

The fear was noticeably heavier in Ragan’s voice now. “What will we do if we have to abandon the boat?”

Boss said flatly, “Pray there’s enough loose wreckage that will float that we can hang on to until this storm blows over.”

Boss hung up the speaking tube and gave a mighty heave of the wheel to keep the boat moving against the swell, as a huge wave fell against the left bow of the Kalispell and shoved her broadside to the surge. This was what Boss was afraid of. Caught by a huge wave on the side of the hull and unable to recover, the ferry would capsize and then sink like a stone under the weight of the train.

Fighting the ferry around to head into the teeth of the gusts, he stole a glance down at the train and was stunned to see it violently rocking back and forth, as the boat fell into the troughs before being struck by the crests that now swirled around the engine’s drive wheels.

Bell took little satisfaction in knowing that if the Kalispell sank into the depths of the lake the criminals on the train would die with him.

IN THE locomotive, Hunt and Carr were hanging on to any valve, gauge, or lever within reach to keep from being flung against the boiler and sides of the cab. Abner sat in the fireman’s seat, his feet braced against the front panel below the window. He felt no need to keep his gun aimed at the engineer and fireman. Not with everyone fighting to keep from being hurled about and becoming injured. He was no longer their threat. It was the storm around them that was menacing.