Alistair MacLean - Breakheart Pass

'Two. Carmody and Harris, they're called.'

Deakin wheeled round and dug the muzzle of his Colt violently into Calhoun's kidneys. Calhoun gasped with pain. Deakin repeated the process. He said, smiling: 'You have the blood of scores of men on your hands, Calhoun. Please, please believe me that I'm just begging for the excuse to kill you.' From the expression on Calhoun's face it was apparent that he believed him totally. 'Tell Benson that you want him, Carmody and Harris here at once.'

Deakin opened the door slightly and prodded Calhoun towards the opening. Benson was pacing up and down only a few feet away.

Calhoun said hoarsely: 'Get Carmody and Harris here. And yourself. Now!'

'What's up, boss? You look – you look like death.'

'God's sake, man, hurry!'

Benson hesitated, then ran across the compound. Deakin closed the door and said to Calhoun: 'Turn round.'

Calhoun obeyed. Deakin's reversed gun swung and he caught Calhoun before he toppled to the ground. Marica stared at him in horror.

'Spare me your goddamned lectures.' Deakin's tone was coldly conversational. 'A minute from now and he would have been as desperate as a cornered rat.' He turned to Fairchild. 'How many survivors?'

'We lost only ten men – and they gave a good account of themselves.' Fairchild was still trying to massage life back into his hands. 'The rest were caught in their bunks. Calhoun and his friends – we'd given the damned renegades lodging for the night – overpowered my night guards and let the Indians in. But they're two miles from here, in an abandoned mine, with Indian guards.'

'No matter. I don't need them. I don't want them. Last thing I want is a pitched battle. How you feeling now?'

'A great deal better, Mr Deakin. What do you want me to do?'

'When I give the word, go to the armoury and get me a sackful of blasting powder and fuses. Please be very quick then. Where are your cells?'

Fairchild pointed. 'The corner of the compound there.'

'The key?'

Fairchild took a key from the board behind his desk and handed it to Deakin, who nodded his thanks, pocketed it and took up a watching post by the window.

He had to watch only for seconds. Benson, Carmody and Harris were crossing the compound at a dead run. At a nod from Deakin, Claremont helped him to drag the prostrate Calhoun into a more or less standing position. As the three running men approached the Commandant's office the door opened wide and the unconscious form of Calhoun was pushed violently down the steps. The confusion was immediate and complete and the tangled heap of Benson, Carmody and Harris had nothing to offer in the way of resistance when Deakin, gun in hand, appeared in the doorway. Fairchild appeared immediately behind him and ran across to the opposite side of the compound. Deakin followed, leading his horse by one hand while with the other, Colt in hand, he shepherded the other three, now bearing the inert Calhoun, towards the cells. As he turned the key on them, Fairchild appeared from a nearby doorway, carrying what appeared to be a fairly heavy sack. Deakin, on horseback now, snatched up the sack, slung it across the pommel of his saddle and, urging his horse to a gallop, swung left through the main gateway of the compound. Marica, supported by a still shaky Claremont, the blind leading the blind, appeared from the Commandant's office. Together with Fairchild, they made their best speed towards the gateway.

Deakin pulled up his horse in the concealment of an outcrop of rock that had been blasted to make the approach to the trellis bridge, dismounted, flung the bag over his shoulder and headed for the bridge.

Pearce swung out from the left-hand cab window of the locomotive cab and looked ahead. A wide smile crossed his sadly battered face.

'We're there!' Exultation in his voice. 'We're almost there!'

White Hand joined him by the window. The trellis bridge was less than a mile ahead. White Hand smiled and lovingly rubbed the stock of his Winchester repeater.

Deakin, meantime, had just finished wedging two large charges of blasting powder between the wooden piers and buttresses of the trellis bridge, one on either side. He had used scarcely half of the powder Fairchild had given him, but estimated the quantity to be sufficient. He shinned up a wooden buttress, threw the halfempty sack on to the track, then cautiously raised his head; the train was now no more than a quarter of a mile distant. He descended swiftly, ignited the fuses of both charges, then climbed as swiftly back on to the bridge. The train was no more than two hundred yards distant. Deakin shouldered his bag and ran back to the western exit of the bridge.

Pearce and White Hand, leaning out from opposite sides of the footplate, saw the fleeing figure of Deakin just clearing the bridge. Momentarily, the two men in the cab stared at each other, then simultaneously raised their Winchesters. Bullets struck the ground and ricocheted off the rocks near the flying figure of Deakin, but because of the latter's dodging, twisting run and the most unstable firing platform provided by the swaying locomotive, none came too close. Within seconds Deakin had thrown himself behind the shelter of the outcrop of rock.

'The bridge!' Pearce's voice was almost a scream. 'The devil's mined the bridge!' O'Brien, his face masked in rage and fear, slammed shut the throttle and jammed on the brakes. But the train, though abruptly slowing, was already on the bridge.

Fairchild, Claremont and Marica, now no more than two hundred yards distant, stopped and stared. The train appeared to be almost across the bridge; the locomotive and tender were, in fact, already across the bridge and on solid rock. O'Brien, at the controls, mouthing incomprehensible words, realized that he had made a mistake, possibly even a fatal one, released the brake and opened the throttle to its widest extent. But O'Brien was too late. There came two almost simultaneous white flashes, a double roar that combined into one and the bridge disintegrated and collapsed into the ravine. The three coaches disappeared at once into the depths of the gorge, dragging the still coupled tender and locomotive after them. The tender had already disappeared and the locomotive was fast following them when three figures, all bearing Winchesters, jumped clear from the cab and landed heavily on the solid rock. The locomotive was dragged inexorably over the edge and amid the rending screech of tearing metal and the splintering of heavy baulks of timber, the entire train dropped into the depths.

Shaken, but still going concerns, Pearce, O'Brien and White Hand scrambled to their feet. With the three men lining their guns on him Deakin seemed momentarily paralysed, then dived for safety without a shot being fired. Shock had slowed the reactions of the men with the Winchesters.

Fairchild, Claremont and Marica flung themselves flat as the three men advanced, their Winchesters cocked. Deakin thrust his hand under his coat. It came out slowly, empty. His gun was in the Commandant's room. The three men were now less than fifteen yards distant from him, rounding the outcrop: it was obvious that Deakin had no gun. But in his right hand he held an already ignited tube of blasting powder. He waited for what seemed a dangerously long period, then threw it over the outcrop.

The charge exploded over the three men, momentarily blinding them and throwing them off-balance. Deakin ran round the corner of the outcrop. There was much smoke and dust but he could see that White Hand, his hands clutched to his streaming eyes, had lost his rifle. Two seconds later it was in Deakin's hands, lined up on the still slightly dazed Pearce and O'Brien.

Deakin said: 'Don't do it. Don't make me make history. Don't make me the first man in history to kill another with a Winchester repeater.'