Breakheart Pass

EIGHT

Banlon dabbed ineffectually at nose and mouth with a wad of very unhygienic waste. His selfministrations had no noticeable effect, the blood continued to flow copiously. Banlon's normally wizened face now looked even more scraped and drawn, the brown parchment of the skin was several degrees paler and his eyes darted continuously from side to side, a trapped wild animal looking for a means of escape that did not exist. Mainly his eyes flitted from Deakin to Claremont and back again but he found no comfort there: the faces of both men were devoid of pity.

'The end of the road,' Claremont said. 'Live by the sword and you'll die by the same. John Stanton Deakin is the law, Banlon, a secret agent of the Federal Government. You will know what that means.'

Clearly Banlon knew all too well. His weasel face looked, if possible, even more hunted than before. Deakin said to Rafferty: 'Through the body, not the head. We don't want all those nasty ricochets flying about inside the cab.'

He turned his back on the company, moved into the tender and started throwing aside the cordwood from the right-hand rear corner. The eyes of Marica and Banlon did not once leave him. Claremont, Colt cocked, divided his attention between Deakin and Banlon: Rafferty, sticking to his brief, had eyes only for Banlon.

Deakin, his task evidently finished, straightened and stood to one side. Marica performed the classic gesture of putting her hand to her mouth, the dark smoky eyes huge in an ashen face. Claremont stared at the two crumpled uniformclad forms, the upper parts of whose bodies had been exposed.

'Oakland! Newell!'

Deakin said bleakly to Banlon: 'Like I said, the rope.' He turned to Claremont. 'You know now why you couldn't find Oakland and Newell in Reese City. They never left the train.'

'They found out something they shouldn't have found out?'

'Whatever it was they found, it was in this cab. They must have been killed in this cab – you can't carry two dead officers along a platform busy with soldiers. I don't think they could have seen anything suspicious or mcriminating. Not in a cab. Probably heard someone, Banlon and someone else, discussing some very odd things and mounted the cab to investigate, the last mistake they ever made.' 'Henry. That was the someone else. Banlon himself told me that they'd sent the stoker – Jackson – into town while they–'

'While they covered up the bodies of the dead men with cordwood. That's why poor Jackson had to die. He discovered the bodies.' Deakin stooped and carefully replaced some of the cordwood to cover the men. 'I think Banlon was scared that they were using wood too fast and that Jackson would find them, so he plied Jackson with tequila in the hope of making him paralytic and then disposing of the bodies while Jackson snored his head off. But all that happened was that the drink made Jackson careless in the unloading. He pulled all the wood from one corner and discovered the bodies. Then Banlon had to kill him. A heavy spanner, probably; but that didn't kill him.'

'Before God, Colonel. I don't know what this madman's talking about.' Banlon's voice was a high-pitched whine, he was projecting the image of a cornered animal more successfully than ever. Claremont ignored him, his entire attention was on Deakin. 'Go on.'

'When Jackson hit the side of the gorge, death was instantaneous. But there was a deep cut on the back of the neck that had bled badly.'

'And dead men don't bleed.'

'Dead men don't bleed. Banlon tied a cleaning rag to Jackson's wrist, threw him out over the bridge, stopped the train, made marks in front of the cab window to show Jackson had been there and then told the tale.'

Banlon's voice was hoarse, naked fear in it. 'You can't prove any of this!'

'That's so. I can't prove either that you faked control-lever trouble to give enough time for the telegraph lines back to Reese City to be cut.'

Claremont said slowly: 'I saw Banlon adjusting the steam throttle in Reese City–'

'Slackening it, more like. Nor can I prove that he made a premature stop for fuel to allow an explosive charge to be fitted behind the front coupling of the leading troop coach – timed to go off near the top of the steepest climb in the mountains. It's easy now to guess why nobody jumped off or tried to stop the runaway. When we recover the wreckage you can be sure that we'll find that all the doors were locked from outside and that the brakeman had been murdered.'

'On purpose?' Marica whispered. 'Those men were all – murdered?'

Four shots rang out in swift succession followed, at once by the screaming ricochet of bullets as they struck the ironwork of the cab and went screaming off into the darkness and the snow; none, almost unbelievably, ricocheted about the interior of the cab.

'Down!' Deakin shouted. In unison they threw themselves to the floor of the cab and tender – all except Banlon. Banlon's life was already forfeit. A heavy eighteen-inch wrench miraculously appeared in his hand, sliced down in a murderous arc and struck the prone Rafferty a crushing blow on the side of the head. Banlon wrenched the rifle from the already powerless hands and swung round. He said to Claremont, who had his revolver pointing towards the rear of the tender: 'Don't move,' and to Deakin, whose gun was still in his belt: 'I wish you would.'

Neither man moved.

'Lay down your guns.'

They laid down their guns.

'On your feet. Hands high.'

The three rose, Deakin and Claremont with raised arms. Banlon said to Marica: 'You heard.'

She didn't appear to have done so. She was staring unbelievingly down at Rafferty. Quite clearly, he was dead. Banlon shifted the rifle slightly. 'Last chance, lady.'

Like a person in a dream world she slowly lifted her hands. Banlon transferred his attention to Deakin and as he did so Marica's right hand moved slowly until it was behind one of the suspended oil-lamps. If Deakin had seen the stealthy movement no slightest hint of it showed in his face or eyes. Her hand gradually closed on the lamp.

Banlon said: 'I don't know why you brought those white sheets but they're going to be mighty useful. Climb up on the cordwood there and wave one. Now!'

Marica's hand lifted the lamp clear and her arm jerked convulsively forward. Out of the corner of his eye Banlon saw the blur of light come towards him. He whirled, moving sideways, but was too late to prevent the lamp from striking him in the face. He retained hold of the rifle but was offbalance for all of two seconds, more time than a man like Deakin would ever need. His headlong dive caught Banlon in the midriff, sending the rifle clattering to the floor and Banlon staggering back to crash with stunning force against the boiler. Deakin followed like a big cat, caught Banlon by the throat and smashed his head twice against the metalwork.

Deakin's face was no longer without expression. As his eyes shifted to the left and down and rested momentarily on Rafferty's body his face was savage and bitter and almost inhuman and for the first time Marica looked on him with fear. Deakin returned his attention to Banlon. Banlon could already have been dead but Deakin neither knew nor cared. Once again Banlon's head thudded against the boiler, almost certainly crushing the occiput. Deakin lifted the man high, took two steps and threw him out over the side of the cab.

Pearce and O'Brien, guns in hands, were on the leading coach's front platform. Suddenly, both their gazes jerked sideways and they had just time to identify Banlon's tumbling body before it disappeared into the darkness. They stared at each other, then moved hastily off the platform inside the coach.

In the cab, Deakin's temporary expression of implacability had been replaced by the habitual mask of impassivity. He said to Marica: 'Go on. I know. I shouldn't have done it.'

'Why not?' she said reasonably. 'You said you couldn't prove a thing.'

For the second time that night Deakin's expression slipped. He stared at her in total astonishment. He said carefully : 'We may have more in common than you think.'

She smiled at him sweetly. 'How do you know what I think?'

In the officers' day compartment O'Brien, Pearce, Henry and the Governor were holding what appeared to be a council of war. At least, the first three were. The Governor, a brimming whisky glass in his hand, was staring at the wood stove; the expression of misery on his face was profound.

'This is terrible!' His voice was a low moan. 'Terrible. I'm ruined. Oh my God.'

O'Brien said savagely: 'You didn't think it terrible when I found out what kind of man you were, that you'd rigged elections and spent a fortune in bribes to become Governor and suggested you come in with Nathan and myself. You didn't think it terrible when you suggested Nathan here would be the ideal agent and appointed him personally to deal with the Indian reservations. You didn't think it terrible when you insisted on your share of half of all we made. You make me feel violently ill. Governor Fairchild.'

'I didn't think we'd get involved in anything like this,' the Governor muttered drearily. 'All this killing. All this murder. What peace of mind is there in this for an honest man?' He ignored or did not hear O'Brien's incredulous exclamation. 'You didn't tell me you wanted my niece as a hostage in case there was trouble with her father. You didn't tell me–'

Pearce said with feeling : 'God knows what I'd like to tell you. But I have more to think of.'

'You're supposed to be men of action.' Fairchild tried to be scathing but only succeeded in sounding depressed. 'Why don't you do something?'

O'Brien looked at him in contempt.

'Do what, you old fool? Have you seen that barricade of cordwood they've erected at the back of the tender? It would take a cannon shell to go through it, while they're probably peering through a chink, gun in hand, ready to pick off the first of us to go through that door. At six feet,' he added with gloomy finality, 'they can hardly miss.'

'You don't have to make a frontal attack. Go to the back of this coach, climb up and make your approach over the roof. That way you'll be able to look down on anyone in the tender.'

O'Brien pondered, then said: 'Maybe you're not such an old fool after all.'

While Deakin acquainted himself with the controls, Claremont stoked the fire and Marica, sitting on some cordwood with a tarpaulin over her shoulders to protect her from the snow, kept a close watch on the front of the leading coach through a strategically placed chink in the cordwood barricade. Claremont closed the fire-box and straightened.

'So Pearce it was?'

'Yes,' Deakin said. 'Pearce it was. He's been on our suspect list for a long time. It's true he was once an Indian fighter but he moved over to the other side six years ago. But to the Vvorld at large he's still Uncle Sam's man keeping a fatherly eye on the reservations. Whisky and guns. Fatherly!'

'O'Brien?'

'Nothing against him. Every detail of his military record known. A fine soldier but a rotten apple – remember that big reunion scene in Reese City with Pearce, recalling the good old days at Chattanooga in '63? O'Brien was there all right. Pearce was never within a thousand miles of it – he was an Indian scout for one of the six cavalry companies raised by what became the new State of Nevada the following year. So that made O'Brien a bad one, too.'

'Which must go for the Governor as well?'

'What else? He's weak and avaricious and a manipulator of some note.'

'But he'll hang from the same tree?'

'He'll hang from the same tree.'

'You suspected everyone.'

'My nature. My job.'

'Why not me?'

'You didn't want Pearce aboard. That put you in the clear. But I wanted him aboard – and me. It wasn't hard – not with those splendid “Wanted” notices the Service provided.'

'You fooled me.' Claremont sounded bitter but not rancorous. 'Everyone fooled me. The Government or the Army might have taken me into their confidence.'

'Nobody fooled you. We suspected there might be something wrong at Humboldt so it was thought better to have two strings to the bow. When I joined this train I knew no more about what was going on at Humboldt than you did.'

'But now you know?'

'Now I know.'

'Deakin!' Deakin whirled round as the shout came from behind him, his hand reaching for the gun in his belt. 'There's a gun lined up on the little lady. Don't try anything, Deakin.'

Deakin didn't try anything. Pearce was sitting on the roof of the leading coach, his feet dangling over the front edge, a very steady Colt in his hand and his saturnine hawk-like face creased in a very unfriendly smile.

Deakin kept his hands well away from his body which seemed a doubly advisable thing to do for, a few feet behind Pearce on the roof, he could now make out O'Brien also, inevitably with pistol in hand. Deakin called: 'What do you want me to do?'

'That's more like it, Mr Secret Service man.' Pearce sounded almost jovial. 'Stop the train.'

Deakin turned towards the controls and said sotto voce: 'Stop the train, the man said.'

He eased the brake very gently as he closed the throttle. Suddenly, in a convulsive movement, he closed the brakes all the way. The locomotive wheels locked solid and there came a series of violently metallic crashes as the buffers of the tender and the following coaches came into jarring successive contact.

The effect for the two gunmen on the roof was disastrous. The combination of the sudden deceleration and the violent jolting sent the seated Pearce sliding helplessly forward on the ice-coated roof to pitch wildly downward on to the platform beneath, his gun spinning away on to the trackside as he clutched at the safety rail to save himself. Further back on the roof O'Brien was sprawled out broadside on the length of the coach as he clung tightly to a ventilator to prevent himself from going the same way as Pearce.

Deakin shouted: 'Down!' He released the brake, opened the throttle wide and dived towards the tender. Claremont was already sprawled on the cab floor while Marica was sitting on the floor of the tender with a pained expression on her face. Deakin risked a quick glance over the cordwood barricade at the rear of the tender.

Pearce, already on his feet, was moving very quickly indeed into the shelter of the leading coach. O'Brien, face bitter and masked in rage, was lining up his pistol. Flame stabbed from the muzzle. For Deakin, the shot, the metallic clang as the bullet struck metal and the whine of the ricochet came as one. Almost as a reflex action he grabbed the nearest baulk of cordwood and, without exposing himself to O'Brien's fire, hurled it upwards and backwards.

O'Brien had no target to fire at, but then he did not think he required one. A haphazardly ricocheting spent shell inside that confined metallic space could be just as deadly as a direct hit. As he eased the pressure on the trigger, the expression on his face changed from anger to alarm; the cordwood baulk rapidly approaching him seemed as large as a tree trunk. Still retaining his grip on the ventilator, he flung himself to one side but too late to prevent the baulk of timber striking him on the shoulder with numbing force: his gun flew wide. Unaware that O'Brien was disarmed, Deakin continued to throw baulks of wood as fast as he could stoop and straighten. O'Brien managed to avoid some of the missiles and fend off others, but was unable to prevent himself from being struck by quite a number. He made an awkward, scuttling, crablike retreat towards the rear of the roof of the first coach and thankfully lowered himself to the shelter of the rear platform.

In the tender Deakin stood up, risked a quick first glance, then a longer one to the rear. The coast was clear. Both the front platform and the roof of the leading coach were deserted. He turned to Marica.

'Hurt?'

She rubbed herself tenderly. 'Only where I sat down suddenly.'

Deakin smiled and looked at Claremont. 'You?'

'Only my dignity.'

Deakin nodded, eased the throttle, picked up Rafferty's rifle, moved towards the rear of the tender and began to arrange a fresh gap in the cordwood barricade.

In the day compartment the Governor and his three companions were holding their second council of war. There was for the moment a certain aura of frustration, if not precisely defeatism. Governor Fairchild had the same brimming glass – or another brimming glass – of whisky in his hand. His expression as he gazed into the glowing wood stove was nervously unhappy in the extreme. O'Brien and Pearce, the latter just replacing a decanter on the centre of the table between them, wore the expressions of two very tough, very competent men who were not accustomed to being routed so completely and so easily. Henry, also with a glass in his hand, stood at a respectful distance; his expression was, if that were possible, more lugubrious than ever.

Pearce said savagely: 'Any more clever ideas, Governor?'

'The conception was mine. The execution was yours. Is it my fault he out-smarted you? By God, if I were twenty years younger–'

'You're not,' said O'Brien. 'So shut up.'

Henry said diffidently: 'We've a crate of blasting powder. We could throw a stick–'

'If you've nothing better to suggest, you'd better shut up, too. We need this train to take us back east.'

They relapsed into a brooding silence, a silence which came to an abrupt end as the whisky decanter shattered and sent the alcohol and razoredged slivers of glass flying across the compartment. The sharp crack of a rifle was clearly heard. The Governor took his hand away from his cheek and stared uncomprehendingly at the blood. There came a second crack and Pearce's black hat flew across the compartment. Suddenly, there was no more incomprehension. All four men flung themselves to the floor and crawled hurriedly towards the passageway leading to the dining compartment. Three more bullets thudded into the day compartment, but by the time the last of those had arrived the compartment had been vacated.

Deakin withdrew his rifle from the cordwood barricade, stood up, took Marica by the arm and led her into the locomotive cab. He eased the throttle some more, picked up the dead Rafferty, carried him to the tender and covered him with a piece of tarpaulin before returning to the cab.

Claremont said: 'I'd better get back on watch, then.'

'No need. They won't bother us again tonight.' He peered closely at Claremont. 'Only your dignity hurt, eh?' He lifted Claremont's left arm and looked at the hand which was bleeding profusely. 'Clean it with snow, ma'am, please, then bandage it with a strip of that sheet.' He returned his attention to the track ahead. The train was doing no more than fifteen miles an hour, a safe maximum in the very restricted visibility conditions. Unenthusiastically, he set about stoking the fire-box.

Claremont winced as Marica cleaned the wound. He said: 'Back there on the roof you said there would be no friends at the Fort.'

'There will be some – under lock and key. The Fort's been taken over. Sepp Calhoun, for a certainty. With the help, probably, of the Paiutes.'

'Indians! What's in it for Indians – except reprisals?'

'There's a lot in it for the Indians – and no reprisals either. Not once they've received the payment we're carrying aboard this train.'

'Payment?'

'In the supply wagon. Why Doctor Molyneux died. Why Peabody died. Molyneux said he was going to examine the medical supplies – so Molyneux had to die.'

'Had to?'

'There's no medicine on this train. The medical crates are stuffed with rifle ammunition.'

Claremont watched Marica complete the bandaging of his hand. After a long pause he said: 'I see. And the Reverend?'

'The Reverend? I doubt whether Peabody has ever seen the inside of a church. He's been a Union and Federal agent for the last twenty years, my partner for the last eight of those.'

Claremont said carefully: 'He's been what?'

They caught him opening up a coffin. You know, for the cholera victims.'

'I know. I know what the coffins are for.' Claremont sounded testy but the impatience in his voice probably stemmed from his confusion.

There's as much cholera in Fort Humboldt as there are brains in my head.' Deakin, with little or no justification, sounded thoroughly disgusted with himself. 'Those coffins are full of Winchester rifles, repeaters, lever action tubular magazines.'

'No such thing.'

'There is now.'

'How come I've never heard of them?'

'Few people have – outside the factory. Production began only four months ago, none has been on sale yet – but the first four hundred were stolen from the factory. Now we know where all those stolen arms are, don't we?'

'I don't know where I am. Coming or going. I'm lost. What happened to the horse wagons, Mr Deakin?'

'I detached them.'

'Inevitably. Why?'

Deakin glanced at the gauge. 'A moment. We're losing pressure.'

There was no easing of pressure in the comparative safety of the dining compartment where Fairchild and the others were holding their third council of war. It was a council singularly lacking in animation, or, for that matter, conversation. For the most part the Governor, O'Brien and Pearce sat in silent gloom, which another bottle of whisky they had obtained from somewhere seemed powerless to dispel, while Henry dispiritedly stoked the wood stove.

The Governor stirred. 'Nothing? Can you think of nothing?'

O'Brien was curt. 'No.'

'There must be an answer.'

Henry straightened from the stove. 'Begging the Governor's pardon, we don't need an answer.'

'Oh, do be quiet,' O'Brien said wearily.

Henry had his say to say and refused to be quiet. 'We don't need an answer because there isn't any question. The only question could be, what happens if we don't stop him. Well, it's simple. He just drives on till he's safe and sound with his friends in Fort Humboldt.'

There was a quickening of interest, a long and thoughtful silence, then O'Brien said slowly: 'By God, I do believe you're right, Henry. Just because he knows we're running guns to the Indians we've assumed that he knows all about us, what we really have in mind. Of course he doesn't. How could he? Nobody does. Impossible – nobody but us have been in touch with the Fort.

'What else?' O'Brien said expansively. 'Well, gentlemen, it's a bitter night. I suggest we just let Deakin get right on with his driving. He seems quite competent.'

Beaming broadly, the Governor reached for the bottle. He said with happy anticipation: 'White Hand will certainly give him a warm welcome when we arrive at the Fort.'

White Hand was, at that moment, quite a long distance from the Fort and increasing the distance between them by the minute. The snow was still falling but not so heavily; the wind was still blowing but not so strongly. Behind White Hand, two or three score heavily muffled horsemen cantered rapidly along the base of a broad and winding valley. White Hand turned his head and looked slightly to his left and upwards. Already, above the mountains, there were the beginnings of a lightening of the sky to the east.

White Hand swung in the saddle, gestured to the east and beckoned his men on, urgently. impatiently. The Paiutes began to string out as they increased speed along the valley floor.

Deakin, too, could see the first signs of the predawn as he straightened from the open fire-box. He glanced at the steam-gauge, nodded in satisfaction and closed the door of the fire-box. Claremont and Marica, both pale-faced and showing unmistakable signs of exhaustion, occupied the two bucket seats in the cab. Deakin himself could easily have felt the same way but he could not yet allow himself the luxury of being tired. As much to keep himself alert and occupied as for any other reason, Deakin resumed where he had left off.

'Yes. The horse wagons. I had to cut those loose. Indians – almost certainly the Paiutes under White Hand – are going to try to intercept and ambush this train at the entrance to Breakheart Pass. I know Breakheart Pass. They'll be forced to leave their horses at least a mile away – and I don't want them to have any more horses ready to hand.'

'Ambush? Ambush?' Claremont was a man groping in the dark. 'But I thought the Indians were working hand in hand with those – those renegades back there.'

'And so indeed they are. But they're under the impression that the attempt to detach the troop wagons failed – and, for them, those troops must be destroyed. I had to get the Indians out of the Fort – otherwise w e could never get in.'

Claremont said carefully: They're under the impression that–'

'The missing telegraph. It was missing because I hid it. In the haybox in the first horse wagon. When we were stopped last night and I was fuelling this damned fire-box I took time off to use it. They thought I was O'Brien.'

Claremont looked at him for a long moment. 'You've been very busy, Mr Deakin.'

'I haven't been all that idle.'

'But why, why, why?' Marica spread her hands helplessly. 'Why for the sake of a few crates of rifles should Fort Humboldt be taken over? Why should the Paiutes be attacking the train? Why the killings, the massacre of those soldiers? Why should my uncle, O'Brien and Pearce be risking their lives, wrecking their careers–'

'Those coffins aren't arriving empty at Fort Humboldt and by the same token and for the same reason they won't be leaving empty either.'

Claremont said: 'But you said there was no cholera–'

'No cholera. But there's something else at Fort Humboldt, something quite different from cholera, something for which men will sell their lives, their honour, their souls. Have you ever heard of four men called Mackay, Fair, O'Brien – no relation of our friend back there – and Flood?'

Claremont looked down at the blood seeping slowly through the makeshift bandage. 'The names sound familiar.'

'Those are the four men who struck the Big Bonanza earlier this year on the Comstock. To our certain knowledge there's already been ten million dollars' worth taken out of the ground. There's only one way this metal can be shipped east – on this railroad. And, of course, there's also the regular gold bullion transport from the Californian fields. Both sets of bullion have to funnel through Fort Humboldt. It's my guess that, at this moment, there's more gold and silver bullion in Fort Humboldt than in any place outside the Federal vaults.'

Claremont said: 'It's just as well that I'm already sitting down.'

'Make yourself at home. As you know, the state governor is notified whenever there's going to be a large-scale bullion transport through his territory and it's up to him to notify either the military or civilian authorities to provide the guard. In this case Fairchild notified neither. Instead he notified O'Brien, who notified Pearce, who notified Calhoun, who hired the services of the Paiutes for a stated reward. It's all very simple, isn't it?'

'And the bullion was going back in those coffins?'

'How else? Can you imagine a safer, a more foolproof form of transport? Nobody's going to open up coffins – especially the coffins of men who have died of cholera. If need be, those bullion coffins could even be buried with full military honours – to be dug up the following night, of course.'

Claremont shook his head. His spirit seemed to have left him, he was a man close to despair. 'All those murdering Paiutes, heaven knows how many of them, those desperadoes in the coaches behind us, Calhoun and his renegades waiting for us in Fort Humboldt–'

'Don't worry,' Deakin said comfortingly. 'We'll think of something.'

Marica looked at him with a coldly appraising eye. 'I'm sure you'll think of something, Mr Deakin.'

'As a matter of fact, I already have.'