Breakheart Pass

TEN

O'Brien sagged against the side of the cab, mopping a sweat-stained brow in relief. The train was still reversing but, just as clearly, it was markedly slowing. O'Brien looked from the footplate towards the rear. White Hand and his men were now less than a quarter of a mile distant. For once, White Hand's iron impassivity had deserted him. His face reflected at first astonished disbelief, then gladness. He waved towards the train, beckoned to his men and broke into a run. Within two minutes the Paiutes were swarming aboard the stopped train while White Hand swung up on to the footplate to be greeted by O'Brien. Immediately, O'Brien opened the throttle and the train began to move forwards.

O'Brien said: 'And the horses were all gone?'

'All gone. And two of my men shot in the back. You have saved us a long walk, Major O'Brien. My friend, Marshal Pearce – I do not see him.'

'You will in a moment. He dropped off to attend to some urgent business.'

O'Brien peered ahead through the cab window where the western exit of Breakheart Pass could be seen coming up. Suddenly, to obtain a better view, he leaned out through the footplate entrance. Beyond question, there was a body lying on the track ahead: equally beyond question, the body was that of Pearce. O'Brien swore and jumped for the steam throttle and brake.

The train juddered to a halt. O'Brien and White Hand jumped down, ran forward, then stopped, grim-faced, at the spectacle of the crumpled, bleeding and still very unconscious Pearce. As one, both men lifted their eyes and looked about thirty yards ahead. Above a hole blown in the rail-bed, a sleeper was twisted and a rail badly buckled.

White Hand said softly: 'Deakin will die for this.'

O'Brien looked at him for a long moment, then said sombrely: 'Not if he sees you first, White Hand.'

'White Hand fears no man.'

'Then you'd better learn to fear this one. He is a United States Federal agent. In your own language, he has the cunning of a serpent and the luck of the devil. Marshal Pearce can count himself lucky that Deakin did not choose to kill him. Come, let us repair this track.'

Under O'Brien's direction it took the Paiutes all of twenty minutes to effect the repair. They worked in two gangs – one removing the damaged section of the track, another freeing a sound section to the rear of the train. The damaged section was thrown down the embankment while the undamaged section was brought forward from the rear and fitted in its place. Bedding down the sleepers and aligning the track was no job for unskilled amateurs but eventually O'Brien was satisfied that, jerry-built though the improvisation was, it might just bear the weight of the train. During the operation a groaning Pearce, his back propped against the cow-catcher, slowly regained consciousness, supported by a solicitous Henry who constantly dabbed a cheek and temple already badly cut and spectacularly bruised.

'We go now,' O'Brien said. The Paiutes, Pearce and Henry went back into the main body of the train while White Hand rejoined O'Brien in the cab. O'Brien released the brake and opened the throttle very gently indeed, at the same time peering out gingerly over the side. As the locomotive wheels reached the new section of the track the line dipped slightly but not dangerously. When the last of the coaches had passed over the damaged area O'Brien returned to the controls and opened the throttles wide.

Deakin, Claremont and Marica had stopped, all three still on horseback. Deakin was swiftly rebandaging Claremont's gory hand.

Claremont said urgently: 'Minutes count, man! We're losing time.'

'We'll lose you if we don't stop this bleeding.' He glanced at Marica, who with set face and lips compressed against the pain, held her left wrist tightly in her right hand. 'How's it going?'

'I'll be all right.'

Deakin looked at her briefly, without expression, then resumed the rebandaging. They had scarcely moved on when he looked at her again. She was slumped in the saddle, her head bowed. He said: 'Is your wrist that bad?'

'It's my ankle. I can't put my foot in the stirrup.' Deakin moved round to the other side of her horse. Her left leg was dangling clear of the stirrup. He looked away, turned around and glanced upward over his right shoulder. The snow was gone and the clouds drifting away to leave the washed-out blue of the sky; the sun was appearing over the shoulder of a mountain. Again, he looked at Marica: with ankle and wrist out of commission she was now scarcely able to maintain her seat in the saddle. He pulled in close to her horse, lifted her across to his own, took the reins of the now riderless horse in his free hand and urged both animals into a rapid canter. Claremont, who looked in no better case than Marica, followed close behind. They were now paralleling the line of the railway track. The ground there was flat and relatively free from snow and they made comparatively good time.

Sepp Calhoun was in his usual place, the Commandant's chair, with his feet in their usual position, the Commandant's table, pursuing his usual custom which was drinking the Commandant's whisky and smoking one of his cheroots. The only other occupant of the room was Colonel Fairchild, who sat on a straight deal chair and had his wrists bound behind him. The door opened and a scruffy and very swarthy white man entered.

Calhoun said genially: 'All right, Carmody?'

'Fixed. The telegraphists are locked up with the rest. Benson is at the gate. Harris is fixing some grub.'

'Fine. Just time for a snack before our friends arrive. Less than an hour, I should say.' He grinned mockingly at Fairchild. 'The battle of Breakheart Pass belongs to history now, Colonel.' He smiled even more broadly. 'I guess “massacre” is the word I'm looking for.'

In the supply wagon a still badly battered but much recovered Pearce was busy handing out repeaters and ammunition to the Paiutes who crowded round him. There was no sign of the traditional Indian reserve. They chattered and smiled and their eyes shone, children transported by their new toys. Pearce made his way forward and clambered into the tender, three Winchester repeaters under his arm. He passed into the cab and handed one to White Hand.

'A present for you. White Hand.'

The Indian smiled. 'You are a man of your word, Marshal Pearce.'

Pearce made to smile but his face at once felt so painful that he rapidly thought better of it. Instead he said: 'Twenty minutes. Not more than twenty minutes.'

Deakin had fifteen minutes on them. Momentarily he halted the horses and gazed ahead. The bridge over the ravine was no more than half a mile away; immediately beyond that lay the Fort Humboldt compound. He helped Marica on to her own horse and motioned for both her and Claremont to precede him. He drew his pistol and held it in his hand. In now brilliant sunshine the three horses picked their delicate way across the trestle bridge that spanned the ravine and cantered up to the compound gate. Benson, the guard, a man with a dull, stupid, brutalized face, moved out to intercept them, cocked rifle ready in his hands.

'Who are you?' His voice was slurred with a mixture of truculence and alcohol. 'What's your business at Fort Humboldt?'

'Not with you.' Deakin's voice was bleak, authoritative. 'Sepp Calhoun. Quickly!'

'Who you got there?'

'Are you blind? Prisoners. From the train.'

'From the train?' Benson nodded uncertainly, whatever mental processes he had clearly in temporary abeyance. 'You'd better come.'

Benson led them across the compound. As they approached the Commandant's office the door opened and Calhoun appeared, a gun in either hand. He said savagely: 'Who the hell you got there, Benson?'

'Says they're from the train, boss.'

Deakin ignored both Calhoun and Benson and moved his pistol in the direction of Claremont and Marica. 'Get down, you two.' He turned to Calhoun. 'You Calhoun? Let's talk inside.'

Calhoun levelled both pistols at Deakin. 'Uhuh. Too fast, mister. Who are you?'

Deakin said in weary exasperation. 'John Deakin. Nathan Pearce sent me.'

'So you say.'

'So they say.' He nodded to the now dismounted and clearly sick Claremont and Marica. 'My passport. Hostages. Safe-conduct. Call them what you like. Nathan said I was to take them for proof.'

A shade less aggressively Calhoun said: 'I've seen passports in better shape.'

'They tried to be clever. Meet Colonel Claremont, the relief Commandant. And Miss Marica Fairchild – the present Commandant's daughter.'

Calhoun's eyes widened, his mouth opened perceptibly and his guns momentarily wavered, but his recovery was almost immediate. 'We'll soon see about that. Inside.' He and Benson ushered the other three, at gun-point, into the Commandant's office.

Colonel Fairchild stared as the door opened. Despite the bound hands, he stumbled shakily to his feet.

'Marica! Marica! And Colonel Claremont.' Marica hobbled across the room and threw her arms around him. 'My dear, my dear. What have they done to you? And what – what in God's name – why are you here?'

Deakin said to Calhoun: 'Satisfied?'

'Well, I guess – but I never heard of no John Deakin.'

Deakin thrust his gun inside his coat, a pacific gesture which helped further reassure the wavering Calhoun.

'Who do you think took those four hundred rifles from the Winchester armoury?' He had the ascendancy now and used it with savage authority. 'God's sake, man, stop wasting time. Things are bad, terribly bad. Your precious White Hand botched the job. He's dead. So's O'Brien. Pearce is hurt, badly. The soldiers have the train and when they get it going again–'

'White Hand, O'Brien, Pearce–'

Deakin nodded curtly to Benson. 'Tell him to wait outside.'

'Outside?' Calhoun seemed dazed.

'Out. There's worse to come – but for your ears only.'

Calhoun nodded mechanically at a bewildered Benson, who left, closing the door behind him.

Calhoun said despairingly: 'There couldn't be anything worse–'

'Yes, there is. This.' The pistol was back in Deakin's hand, the muzzle pressing with brutal force against Calhoun's teeth. Deakin swiftly relieved the stupefied Calhoun of both guns and handed one to Claremont, who lined it up on Calhoun. Deakin produced a knife and sliced the bonds of Colonel Fairchild, who was no less flabbergasted than Calhoun, and laid Calhoun's other gun on the table beside him. 'Yours. When you're fit to use it. How many other men does Calhoun have? Apart from Benson?'

'Who in God's name are you? How–'

Deakin grabbed Fairchild's lapels. 'How – many – men?'

'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.'

Pearce, who had recovered the most quickly of the three, hurled himself to one side, bringing up his repeater. Deakin's gun boomed.

Deakin said: i think that's enough history for one day.'

O'Brien nodded and threw down his gun. His tear-filled eyes could barely see.

The three of them were joined by Fairchild, Marica and Claremont, the last with a very steady gun in his wounded hand. Deakin, Fairchild and Marica stood a little apart close to the edge of the shattered bridge, gazing downwards. Far below in the depths of the ravine lay the crumpled, broken remains of the train with the locomotive lying on top of the crushed coaches. There was no movement to be seen, no sign of life.

Deakin said heavily: 'An eye for an eye. Well, I suppose we have the ones who matter – O'Brien, Calhoun and White Hand.'

Fairchild was sombre. 'All except one.'

Deakin looked at him. 'You – you know about your brother?'

'I always suspected. I never knew. He – he was the ringleader?'

'O'Brien was. O'Brien used him, used his greed and his weakness.'

'And all his ambition, all his greed, ends in the bottom of a ravine.'

'For him, for you, for your daughter – the best way.'

'And now?'

'One detachment of your men to bring back the horses I abandoned down the line. Another to repair the telegraph line. Then we call up a train-load of army and civil engineers to rebuild this bridge.'

Marica said: 'And you'll be returning to Reese City now?'

'I'll be going back to Reese City when that bridge is repaired and a train has crossed it to load all the bullion in Fort Humboldt. I'll let that gold and silver out of my sight when it's reached Washington. But not before.'

Fairchild said: 'But it'll take weeks to repair that bridge.'

'Like enough.'

Marica smiled. 'It looks like being a long hard winter.'

Deakin smiled in return. 'Oh, I don't know. I dare say we'll find something to talk about.'

Alistair MacLean

Alistair MacLean, the son of a Scots minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941, at the age of eighteen, he joined the Royal Navy. After the war he read English at Glasgow University and became a school-master. The two and a half years he spent aboard a wartime cruiser were to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his remarkably successful first novel, published in 1955. He is now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th century, the author of twenty-nine worldwide bestsellers, many of which have been filmed, including The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Fear is the Key and Ice Station Zebra. In 1983, he was awarded a D.Litt. from Glasgow University. Alistair MacLean died in 1987.

By Alistair MacLean

HMS Ulysses

The Guns of Navarone

South by Java Head

The Last Frontier

Night Without End

Fear is the Key

The Dark Crusader

The Golden Rendezvous

The Satan Bug

Ice Station Zebra

When Eight Bells Toll

Where Eagles Dare

Force 10 from Navarone

Puppet on a Chain

Caravan to Vaccares

Bear Island

The Way to Dusty Death

Breakheart Pass

Circus

The Golden Gate

Seawitch

Goodbye California

Athabasca

River of Death

Partisans

Floodgate

San Andreas

The Lonely Sea (stories)

Santorini

STERLING and the distinctive Sterling logo are registered trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

First Sterling edition 2012

Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1976

First published in Great Britain by

Collins 1974 Copyright © Devoran Trustees Ltd 1974

Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4027-9350-9

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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.