Alistair MacLean - Breakheart Pass

'Did what? Ah, the Doc. Set a murderer to catch a murderer, is that it?'

'No.' The dark eyes looked at him levelly. 'I didn't mean that.'

'Well, it wasn't me and it wasn't you. That only leaves the Marshal with about seventy other suspects – I don't know how many troops they have aboard. Ah! Here are some of them coming now.'

Claremont entered, followed by Pearce and O'Brien. Deakin caught his eye. Claremont nodded heavily and, just as heavily, sat down in silence and reached for the coffee-pot.

As the morning progressed, so did the snow steadily thicken, as Deakin had predicted. The increase of the wind had not kept pace with that of the snow so blizzard conditions were still some way off: but all the signs were there.

The train was now fairly into the spectacular mountain country. The track no longer ran along valleys with rivers meandering through them, but through steep, almost precipitously-sided gorges, through tunnels or along permanent ways that had been blasted out of the solid rock leaving a cliff-edge drop to the foot of the ravine below.

Marica peered through a lee-side window that was relatively free from snow and thought, not for the first time, that those mountains were no place for the faint-hearted and advanced sufferers from vertigo. At the moment, the train was rattling and swaying its way across a trellis bridge spanning an apparently bottomless gorge, the lowermost supports of the bridge being lost in the gloomy and snow-filled ravine below.

As the locomotive came off the bridge, it curved away to the right and began to climb up the lefthand side of a steep-sided valley, towering snowclad pines to the left, the ravine to the right. The brake van had just cleared the bridge when Marica staggered and almost fell as the train brakes screeched and jolted the train to a violent halt. None of the men in the dining compartment was similarly affected for the sufficient reason that they were all sitting down: but the explosive language of Claremont could be taken as being fairly representative of their general feelings. Within seconds, Claremont, O'Brien, Pearce and, more leisurely, Deakin had risen, moved out on to the rear platform of the leading coach and swung down to the ankle-deep snow of the track-side.

Banlon, his wizened face twisted with anxiety, came running down the track. O'Brien caught and checked him, Banlon struggled to free himself. He shouted: 'God's sake, let go! He's fallen off.'

'Who has, man?'

'Jackson, my fireman!' Banlon broke free and ran on to the bridge, stopped and peered down into the murky depths. He hurried on another few paces and looked again. This time he remained where he was, first kneeling and then lowering himself until he was prone on the snow. He was joined almost immediately by the others, including by now Sergeant Bellew and some soldiers. All of them peered gingerly over the edge of the bridge.

Sixty, perhaps seventy feet below, a crumpled figure lay huddled on a spur of rock. Over a hundred feet below that again the foaming white waters of the river at the foot of the gorge could dimly be discerned.

Pearce said: 'Well, Doctor Deakin?' The emphasis on the 'doctor' was minimal: but it was there.

Deakin was curt. 'He's dead. Any fool can see that.'

'I don't regard myself as a fool and I can't see it,' Pearce said mildly. 'He might be in need of medical assistance. Agreed, Colonel Claremont?'

'I have no power to ask this man–'

Deakin said: 'And neither has Pearce. And if I go down, what guarantee have I that Pearce won't arrange for a life-line to slip? We all know the high opinion the Marshal has of me and we all know that after my trial I'm for the drop. It would save the Marshal an awful lot of time and trouble if he were kind of accidentally to arrange for me to have this drop now – right down to the bottom of the gorge.'

'There'll be six of my soldiers belaying that rope, Deakin.' Claremont's face was stony. 'You insult me, sir.'

'I do?' Deakin looked at him consideringly. 'Yes, I do believe I do. My apologies.' He took the end of the rope, made a double bowline, thrust his legs through the loops and took a bight around his waist. 'I'd like another rope, too.'

'Another rope?' Claremont frowned. 'That one would support a horse.'

'I wasn't thinking so much about horses. Would you think it fitting for an army colonel to lie down there until the vultures picked you clean to the bone? Or is it only cavalrymen who rate a decent burial?'

Claremont bestowed a momentary blue glare on Deakin, whirled and nodded to Bellew. Within a minute a soldier had returned with a rope and within two more, after a dizzying, swaying descent, Deakin had secured a foothold on the spur of rock which held the broken body of Jackson.

For almost a minute, buffeted by the gusting winds down the ravine, Deakin remained stooped over the prone figure, then secured the second rope round Jackson. He straightened, lifted a hand in signal and was hauled back up to the bridge again.

'Well?' Predictably, the impatient Claremont.

Deakin undid his rope and rubbed two painfully grazed knees. 'Fractured skull, nearly every major rib in his body broken.' He looked enquiringly at Banlon. 'He had a rag tied to his right wrist.'

'That's right.' Banlon appeared to have shrunk another impossible inch or two. 'He was outside, clearing the snow from my driving window, when he fell off. Tying the rag like that is an old fireman's trick. He can hang on with both hands.'

'Didn't hang on this time, did he? I think I know why. Marshal, you'd better come – as law officer you'll be asked to certify the death certificate. Disbarred doctors are denied that privilege.'

Pearce hesitated, nodded and moved off after Deakin, O'Brien following close behind. Deakin reached the locomotive, walked a couple of paces past the cab and looked up. The snow in the vicinity of the engineer's window and on the after part of the boiler casing had been rubbed off. Deakin swung up to the cab and, watched by Pearce, O'Brien and Banlon, who had now joined them, looked first around him and then behind him. The tender was now two-thirds empty, with the bulk of the cordwood stacked to the rear. On the right-hand side the cords lay in disarray on the floor, as if a heap of them had fallen forward.

Deakin's eyes had become very still and watchful. His nose wrinkled and after a few moments his eyes shifted sideways and downwards. Deakin stooped, reached behind some tangled pieces of cordwood, straightened and held out a bottle.

'Tequila. He was reeking of the stuff, had some of it spilled on his clothes.' He looked incredulously at Banlon. 'And you knew nothing – nothing of this?'

'Just what I was going to ask.' Pearce looked and sounded grim.

'God's my witness, Marshal.' If Banlon kept shrinking at his present rate his eventual disappearance was only a matter of time. 'I've no sense of smell – ask anybody. I didn't know Jackson until he joined us at Ogden – and I never even knew that he drank that stuff.'

'You know now.' Claremont had made his appearance in the cab. 'We all know now. Poor devil. As for you, Banlon, I'm putting you under military law. Any more drinking and you'll end up in a cell in Fort Humboldt and I'll have you dismissed the Union Pacific'

Banlon tried to look aggrieved but his heart wasn't in it. 'I never drink on duty, sir.'

'You were drinking yesterday afternoon at the Reese City depot.'

'I mean when I'm driving the train–'

'That'll do. No more questions. Marshal?'

'Nothing more to ask. Colonel. It's open and shut to me.'

'Right.' Claremont turned back to Banlon. 'I'll have Bellew detail a trooper as fireman.' He made a gesture of dismissal and made to turn away.

Banlon said hurriedly: 'Two things, Colonel.' Claremont turned. 'You can see we're running low on fuel and there's a depot about a mile and a half up the valley–'