Alistair MacLean - Breakheart Pass

'Cholera! Cholera! My father–'

'I know, my child, I know.' The Governor rose, crossed to her seat and put his arm around her shoulders. 'I would have spared you this, Marica, but I thought that if – well, if your father were ill, you might like–'

The Rev. Peabody's recovery from his state of shock was spectacularly swift. From the depths of his armchair he propelled himself to his feet like a jack-in-the-box, his face a mask of incredulous outrage. His voice had moved into the falsetto register.

'How dare you! Governor Fairchild, how dare you! To expose this poor child to the risks, the awful risks, of this – this dreadful pestilence. Words fail me. I insist that we return immediately to Reese City and – and–'

'Return how?' O'Brien maintained a carefully neutral tone and expression. 'It's no easy feat, Reverend, to turn a train on a single track railway.'

'For heaven's sake, padre, what do you take us for?' Claremont's surging irritability couldn't have been more clearly demonstrated by the waving of a red flag. 'Assassins? Would-be suicides? Or just plain fools? We have provisions aboard this train to last a month. And aboard this train we will remain, all of us, until Dr Molyneux pronounces the camp free from the epidemic'

'But you can't, you can't!' Marica rose, clutched Dr Molyneux by the arm and said almost desperately: 'I know you're a doctor, but doctors have as much chance – more chance – of catching cholera than anyone else.'

Molyneux gently patted the anxious hand. 'Not this doctor. I've had cholera – and survived. I'm immune. Good night.'

From his semi-recumbent position on the floor Deakin said: 'Where did you catch it. Doctor?'

Everyone stared at him in surprise. Felons, like little children, were supposed to be seen and not heard. Pearce pushed himself halfway to his feet, but Molyneux waved him down.

'In India,' Molyneux said. 'Where I studied the disease.' He smiled without much humour. 'At very, very close quarters. Why?'

'Curiosity. When?'

'Eight, ten years ago. Again why?'

'You heard the Marshal read out my wanted notice. I know a little about medicine. Just interested, that's all.'

For a few moments Molyneux, his face oddly intent, studied Deakin. Then he nodded briefly to the company and left.

This,' Pearce said thoughtfully, 'isn't nice. The news, I mean. How many at the last count. Colonel? Of the garrison, I mean. The dead.'

Claremont glanced interrogatively at O'Brien, who was his usual prompt and authoritative self. 'At the last count – that was about six hours ago – there were fifteen. That is out of a garrison of seventy-six. We don't have figures as to the numbers stricken but still alive but Molyneux, who is very experienced in such matters, estimates, on the basis of the number of the dead, that anything between two-thirds and threequarters of the remainder must be affected.'

Pearce said: 'So possibly there are no more than fifteen fit soldiers left to defend the Fort?'

'Possibly.'

'What a chance for White Hand. If he knew about this.'

'White Hand? Your bloodthirsty chief of the Paiutes?' Pearce nodded his head and O'Brien shook his. 'We've thought of this possibility and discounted it. We all know about White Hand's obsessive hatred of the white man in general and the United States Cavalry in particular, but we also know that he's very, very far from being a fool. If he weren't, the Army or –' O'Brien permitted himself a slight smile – 'our intrepid lawmen of the West would have nabbed him quite some time ago. If White Hand knows that Fort Humboldt is so desperately under-manned, then he'll know why and will avoid the Fort like the plague.' Another smile, but wintry this time. 'Sorry, that wasn't meant to be clever.'

Marica said shakily: 'My father?'

'No. Clear so far.'

'You mean–'

'I'm sorry.' O'Brien touched her arm lightly. 'All I mean is that I know no more about it than you do.'

'Fifteen of God's children taken to their rest.' Peabody's voice emerged from the depths of the sepulchre. 'I wonder how many more of those poor souls will have been taken from us come the dawn.'

'Come the dawn,' Claremont said shortly, 'we'll find out.' Claremont, clearly, was increasingly of the opinion that the padre was a less than desirable person to have around in circumstances such as these.

'You'll find out?' Again the millimetric raising of Pearce's right eyebrow. 'How?'

'There's no magic. We have a portable telegraph transmitter aboard. We clamp a long lead on to the railroad telegraph wires: that way we contact the fort to the west of Reese City – even Ogden – to the east.' He looked at Marica, who had turned away. 'You are leaving us, Miss Fairchild.'

'I'm – I'm just tired.' She smiled wanly. 'Not your fault. Colonel, but you're not the bearer of very good news.' She walked away stopped by the passageway entrance and looked for a long, considering moment at Deakin, then swung round to face Pearce.

'Is this poor man to get nothing at all to eat or drink?'

'Poor man!' There was open contempt in Pearce's voice but it was clearly directed at Deakin, not Marica. 'Would you like to repeat that, ma'am, to the relatives of the folks who died in the fire at Lake's Crossing? Plenty of meat on that ruffian's bones yet. He'll survive.'

'But surely you're not going to leave him tied up all night?'

'That's just what I intend to do.' Finality in the voice. 'I'll cut him free in the morning.'

'In the morning?'

'That's it. And not for any tender feelings I have for our friend here. By that time we'll be deep in hostile territory. He won't try to escape then. A white man, alone, unarmed and without a horse wouldn't last two hours among the Paiutes. A two-year-old could track him in the snow – and apart from anything else he'd just starve or freeze to death. And whatever else we don't know about Master John Deakin, we have learnt that he has a mighty high regard for his own skin.'

'So he lies there – and suffers – all night.'

Pearce said patiently: 'He's a murderer, arsonist, thief, cheat and coward. You make a mighty poor choice for your pity, ma'am.'

'And you make a mighty poor example of a lawman, Mr Pearce.' Judging by the rather more than mildly astonished looks on the faces of the listeners, her stormy outburst was clearly out of character. 'Or don't you know the law? No, Uncle, I will not “shush, my dear”. The law of the United States is very explicit on this. A man is innocent until proved guilty, but Mr Pearce has already tried, convicted and condemned this man and will probably hang him from the first convenient tree. The law! Show me the law that says that you're entitled to treat a man like a wild dog!'

With a swirl of her long skirts Marica made an angry departure. O'Brien said, poker-faced: 'I thought you knew about the law, Nathan?'

Pearce scowled at him, then grinned ruefully and reached for his glass.

On the western horizon the dark clouds had now turned to a threatening indigo-black. The dimlyseen and still distant peaks loomed palely white against the ominous backdrop: the upper pines in the valley, along the foot of which the railway track snaked in conformation with the winding and partially frozen river, were already covered with snow. The relief train, scarcely more than crawling up the steep gradient, was moving into the bitter cold, the icy darkness of the uplands.

The contrast aboard the train itself could hardly have been more marked, but Deakin, alone now in the officers' day compartment, was hardly in a mood to appreciate this. The warmth from the cordwood stove, the warm glow from the single gimballed oil-lamp were clearly not the matters uppermost in his mind. He was still in his recumbent position but had now fallen over completely on his side. He grimaced in pain as he made another wrenching but futile attempt to ease the ropes that bound his wrists together behind his back; the brief attempt ceased as abruptly as it had begun.