Breakheart Pass

FOUR

Dawn came and it came late, as dawn does in mountain valleys so late in the year and in those altitudes. The distant peaks of the previous evening were now invisible, even although measurably closer; the grey and total opacity of the sky ahead – to the west, that was – was indication enough that, not many miles away, snow was falling. And, as could be seen from the gentle swaying of the snow-clad pine-tops, the morning wind was steadily freshening. Some of the pools in the river, where the water was almost still, had ice reaching out from both banks to meet almost in the middle. The mountain winter was at hand.

Henry, the steward, was stoking the already glowing stove in the officers' day coach when Colonel Claremont entered from the passageway, passing the recumbent and apparently sleeping form of Deakin without so much as a glance. Claremont, his limp of the previous night apparently now no more than a memory, rubbed his hands briskly together.

'A bitter morning, Henry.'

'It's all that, sir. Breakfast? Carlos has it all ready.'

Claremont crossed to the window, drew the curtain, rubbed the misted glass and peered out unenthusiastically. He shook his head.

'Later. Looks as if the weather is breaking up. Before it does, I'd like to speak to Reese City and Fort Humboldt first. Go fetch Telegraphist Ferguson, will you? Tell him to bring his equipment here.'

Henry made to leave, then stood to one side as the Governor, O'Brien and Pearce entered. Pearce moved towards Deakin, shook him roughly and began to untie his knots.

'Good morning, good morning.' Claremont was radiating his customary efficiency. 'Just about to raise Fort Humboldt and Reese City. The telegraphist will be here shortly.'

O'Brien said : 'Stop the train, sir?'

'If you please.'

O'Brien opened the door, moved out on to the front platform, closed the door behind him and pulled an overhead cord. A second or two later Banlon looked out from his cab and peered backwards to see O'Brien moving his right arm up and down. Banlon gestured in return and disappeared. The train began to slow. O'Brien re-entered and clapped his hands against his shoulders.

'Jesus! It's cold outside.'

'Merely an invigorating nip, my dear O'Brien,' Claremont said with the hearty disapproval of one who has yet to poke his nose outside. He looked at Deakin, now engaged in massaging his freed hands, then at Pearce. 'Where do you want to keep this fellow, Marshal? I can have Sergeant Bellew mount an armed guard on him.'

'No disrespect to Bellew, sir. But with a man so handy with matches and kerosene and explosives – and I should imagine that it would be an odd troop train that didn't carry a goodish supply of all three of those – well, I'd rather keep a personal eye on him.'

Claremont nodded briefly, then turned his attention towards two soldiers who had just knocked and entered. Telegraphist Ferguson was carrying a collapsible table, a coil of cable, and a small case containing his writing material. Behind him his assistant, a young trooper called Brown, was lugging the bulky transmitter. Claremont said: 'As soon as you're ready.'

Two minutes later Telegraphist Ferguson was ready. He was perched on the arm of a sofa, and from the telegraph set before him a lead passed through a minimally opened crack in the window. With his handkerchief, Claremont rubbed the misted window and peered out. The lead looped up to the top of a telegraph pole from which Brown was supported by a belt. Brown finished whatever adjustment he was making, then turned and waved a hand. Claremont turned to Ferguson. 'Right. The Fort first.'

Ferguson tapped out a call-up signal three times in succession. Almost at once, through his earphones, could be heard the faint chatter of Morse. Ferguson eased back his earphones and said: 'A minute, sir. They're fetching Colonel Fairchild.'

While they were waiting Marica entered, closely followed by the Rev. Peabody. Peabody was wearing his graveside expression and looked as if he had passed a very bad night. Marica glanced first, without expression, at Deakin, then, interrogatively, at her uncle.

'We're in touch with Fort Humboldt, my dear,' the Governor said. 'We should have the latest report in a minute.'

Faintly, the renewed sound of Morse could be heard from the earphones. Ferguson wrote, rapidly but neatly, tore a sheet from his pad and handed it to Claremont.

More than a day's journey away over the mountains, eight men sat or stood in the telegraphy room in Fort Humboldt. The central and unquestionably the dominating figure in the room lounged in a swivel chair behind a rather splendid leather-topped mahogany table, with both his filthy riding boots resting squarely on top of the desk. The spurs which he needlessly affected had left the leather top in several degrees less than mint condition, a consideration that apparently left the wearer unmoved. His general appearance attested to the first impression that there was little of the aesthetic about him. Even seated, it could be seen that he was a tall figure, bulky and broadshouldered, with a ragged deerskin jacket pulled back to reveal a sagging belt weighted down by a pair of Peacemaker Colts. Above the jacket and below a stetson that had been old while the jacket was still in its first youth, a high-boned face, hooked nose, cold eyes of a washed-out grey and a week's growth of beard overlaying a naturally swarthy complexion gave one the impression of being in the presence of a ruthless desperado, which was, in fact, a pretty apt description for Sepp Calhoun.

A man dressed in United States Cavalry uniform was seated by the side of Calhoun's table, while several feet away another soldier sat by the telegraph. Calhoun looked at the man by his side.

'Well, Carter, let's see if Simpson really transmitted the message I gave him to translate.' Scowling, Carter passed the message across. Calhoun took it and read aloud: '“Three more cases. No more deaths. Hope epidemic has passed peak. Expected time of arrival, please.”' He looked towards the operator. 'Takes a clever man not to be too clever, eh, Simpson? Ain't either of us can afford to make a mistake, is there?'

In the day coach Colonel Claremont had just read out the same message. He laid the note down and said: 'Well, that does make good news. Our time of arrival?' He glanced at O'Brien. 'Approximately.'

'To haul this heavy load with a single loco?' O'Brien pondered briefly. 'Thirty hours, I'd say, sir. I can check with Banlon.'

'No need. Near enough.' He turned to Ferguson. 'You heard? Tell them–'

Marica said: 'My father–'

Ferguson nodded, transmitted. He listened to the reply, eased his headphones and looked up. He said: “Expect you tomorrow afternoon. Colonel Fairchild well.”

While Marica smiled her relief, Pearce said: 'Could you tell the Colonel I'm aboard, coming to take Sepp Calhoun into custody?'

In the Fort Humboldt telegraph room, Sepp Calhoun was also smiling, but not with relief. He made no attempt to conceal the wicked amusement in his eyes as he handed a slip of telegraph paper to a tall, grey-haired, grey-moustached Colonel of the United States Cavalry. 'Honestly, now. Colonel Fairchild, doesn't that beat everything! They're going to come to take poor old Sepp Calhoun into custody. Whatever in the world shall I do?'

Colonel Fairchild read the message and said nothing. His face expressed nothing. Contemptuously, he opened his fingers and let the message drop to the floor. For a moment Calhoun's eyes became still, then he relaxed and smiled again. He could afford to smile. He looked at the four men close to the doorway, two raggedly dressed white men and two equally unprepossessing Indians, all four with rifles pointed variously at Fairchild and the two soldiers, and said: The Colonel must be feeling hungry. Let him get back to his breakfast.'

Claremont said: 'Now try for the telegraph operator at the Reese City depot. Find out if he has any information for us about Captain Oakland or Lieutenant Newell.'

Ferguson said: The depot, sir? that'll be the station-master. I mean, they don't have a telegraph office in Reese City any more. They tell me the telegraphist left for the Big Bonanza some time ago.'

'Well, the station-master.'

'Yes, sir.' Ferguson hesitated. 'The word is, sir, that he's not seen at the depot very often. He appears to spend most of his life in the back room of the Imperial Hotel.'

'Try, anyway.'

Ferguson tried. He transmitted the call-sign at least a dozen times, then looked up. 'I don't seem to be able to raise them, sir.'

O'Brien said, sotto voce, to Pearce: 'Maybe they should switch the telegraph to the Imperial.' The tightening of Claremont's lips showed that the remark hadn't been quite so sotto voce as intended, but he ignored it and said to Ferguson: 'Keep trying.'

Ferguson tried and kept on trying. His earphones remained obstinately silent. He shook his head and looked towards Claremont, who forestalled him. 'No one manning the other end, eh?'

'No, sir, nothing like that.' Ferguson was genuinely puzzled. 'The line's out of action. Dead. One of the relay repeaters gone, most like.'

'I don't see how it can have gone. No snow, no high winds – and nothing the matter with any of them when we called the Fort from Reese City yesterday. Keep trying while we have some breakfast.' He paused, looked first of all unenthusiastically at Deakin, then in grieved enquiry at Pearce. 'This criminal here, this Houston. Does he have to eat with us?'

'Deakin,' Deakin said. 'Not Houston.'

'Shut up,' Pearce said. To the Colonel: 'He could starve for all I care – but, well, he can sit at my table. If the Reverend and the Doctor don't mind, that is.' He glanced around. 'I see the good Doctor isn't up and about yet.' He took Deakin none too gently by the arm. 'Come on.'

The seven people taking breakfast were seated as they had been the previous evening, except that Deakin had taken the place of Dr Molyneux, who had yet to put in an appearance. Peabody, seated next to him, spent what was clearly a most uncomfortable meal: he kept glancing furtively at Deakin and had about him the look of a divine on the qui vive for the emergence of a pair of horns and forked tail. Deakin, for his part, paid no attention: as befitted a man who had just undergone an enforced absence from the pleasures of the table, his undivided attention was devoted to the contents of the plate before him.

Claremont finished his meal, sat back, nodded to Henry to pour him some more coffee, lit a cheroot and glanced across at Pearce's table. He permitted himself one of his rare and wintry smiles.

'I'm afraid Dr Molyneux is going to find some difficulty in adjusting to army breakfast times. Henry, go and waken him.' He twisted in his seat and called down the passageway. 'Ferguson?'

'No luck, sir. Nothing. Quite dead.'

For a moment, head still averted, Claremont tapped his fingers irresolutely on the table, then made up his mind. 'Dismantle your equipment,' he called, then turned to face the company again. 'We'll leave as soon as he's ready. Major O'Brien, if you would be so kind–' He broke off in astonishment as Henry, his measured steward's gait in startling abeyance, almost rushed into the diningroom, wide eyes reflecting the shock mirrored in the long lugubrious face.

'What on earth's the matter, Henry?'

'He's dead, Colonel! He's lying there dead! Dr Molyneux.'

'Dead? Dead? The doctor? Are you – are you sure, Henry? Did you shake him?'

Henry nodded and shivered at the same moment, then gestured towards the window. 'He's like the ice in that river.' He moved to one side as O'Brien pushed by. 'Heart, I'd say, sir. Looked as if he slipped away peaceful, like.'

Claremont rose and paced up and down in the narrow confined space available to him. 'Good God! This is dreadful, dreadful.' It was clear that Claremont, apart from the natural shock at the news of Molyneux's death, was aghast at the implications it held: but it was left to the Reverend Peabody to put it into words.

'In the midst of life …' For a person built along the lines of an undernourished scarecrow Peabody was possessed of an enormously deep and sepulchral voice that seemed to resonate from the depths of the tomb. 'Dreadful for him. Colonel, dreadful to be struck down in his prime, dreadful for those sick and dying souls in the Fort who were depending upon him, and him alone, to come to their succour. Ah, the irony of it, the bitter irony of it all. Life is but a walking shadow.' What was meant by the last remark was not clear and Peabody, it was equally clear, was in no mind to elucidate: hands clasped and eyes screwed tightly shut, Peabody was deep in silent prayer.

O'Brien entered, his face grave and set. He nodded in reply to Claremont's interrogative glance.

'Died in his sleep, I'd say, sir. As Henry says, it looks like a heart attack, and a sudden and massive one at that. From his face, it seems that he never knew anything about it.'

Deakin said: 'Could I have a look?'

Seven pairs of eyes, including those of the Reverend Peabody, who had momentarily interrupted his intercession with the hereafter, immediately turned on Deakin, but none with quite the cold hostility of Colonel Claremont's.

'You? What the devil for?'

'Establish the exact cause of death, maybe.' Deakin shrugged, relaxed to the point of indifference. 'You know that I trained to be a doctor.'

'Qualified?'

'And disbarred.'

'Inevitably.'

'Not for incompetence. Not for professional misconduct.' Deakin paused then went on delicately: 'For other things, shall we say? But once a doctor, always a doctor.'

'I suppose so.' Claremont was sufficiently a realist to allow his pragmatism to override his personal feelings. 'Well, why not? Show him, Henry.'

A profound silence enveloped the dining compartment after the departure of the two men. There were so many things to be said, but all those things were so obvious that it appeared pointless to say them: by common consent they avoided the gaze of each other and seemed to concentrate on objects in the middle distance. Even the advent of Henry with another pot of fresh coffee failed to dispel the funereal atmosphere, if for no reason other than the fart that Henry was a natural for the chief mourner at any wake. All seven pairs of eyes withdrew their gazes from the far distances as Deakin returned.

Claremont said: 'Heart attack?'

Deakin considered. 'I guess you could call it that. Kind of.' He glanced at Pearce. 'Lucky for us we have the law aboard.'

'What do you mean, sir?' Governor Fairchild looked even more distraught than he had the previous evening: with what was possibly very good reason, he now looked positively distressed.

'Somebody knocked Molyneux out, took a probe from his surgical case, inserted it under the rib cage and pushed up, piercing his heart. Death would have supervened pretty well immediately.' Deakin surveyed the company in an almost leisurely fashion. 'I would say that it was done by someone with some medical knowledge, at least of anatomy. Any of you lot know anything about anatomy?'

Claremont's voice was forgiveably harsh. 'What in God's name are you saying?'

'He was struck on the head by something heavy and solid – like a gun butt, say. The skin above the left ear is broken. But death occurred before there was time for a bruise to form. Just below the ribs is a tiny blue-red puncture. Go see for yourselves.'

'This is preposterous.' Claremont's expression didn't quite match the expressed conviction, there was a disturbing certainty about the way in which Deakin spoke. 'Preposterous!'

'Of course it is. What really happened is that he stabbed himself to death, then cleaned up the probe and returned it to his case. Tidy to the end.'

'This is hardly the time–'

'You've got a murderer aboard. Why don't you go and check?'

Claremont hesitated, then led an almost concerted movement back towards the second coach, even the Reverend Peabody pressing along anxiously if apprehensively in the rear. Deakin was left alone with Marica, who sat tensely in her chair, hands clenched in her lap and looking at him with a most peculiar expression. When she spoke it was almost in a whisper.

'A murderer! You're a murderer. The Marshal says so. Your Wanted notice says so. That's why you had me untie and tie those ropes, so that later you could wriggle out–'

'Heaven send me help.' Wearily, Deakin poured himself some more coffee. 'Clear-cut motive, of course – I wanted his job so I upped and did him in in the middle of the night. I killed him, faking to make it look like a natural death, then proved to everyone it wasn't. Then, of course, I re-tied my hands behind my back, using my toes to tie the knots.' He rose, moved past her, touched her lightly on the shoulder, then moved on to a steam-clouded window, which he began to clear. 'I'm tired, too. It's snowing now. The sky's getting dark, the wind's getting up and there's a blizzard lurking behind those peaks. No day for a burial service.'

'There won't be any. They'll take him all the way back to Salt Lake.'

'They'll do what?'

'Doctor Molyneux. And all the men who have died in the epidemic at Fort Humboldt. It's normal peacetime practice. The relatives and friends – well, they like to be there.'

'But it – it'll take days to–'

Not looking at him, she said: 'There are about thirty empty coffins in the supply wagon.'

'There are? Well, I'll be damned. A railroad hearse!'

'More or less. We were told that those coffins were going to Elko. Now we know they're going no further than Fort Humboldt.' She shivered despite the warmth of the compartment. 'I'm glad I'm not returning on this train … Tell me, who do you think did it?'

'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–'

'Yes, yes. I'll detail a loading party. And –?'

'I'm pretty well bushed, sir. And this business of Jackson … If Devlin – that's the brakeman – could relieve me in a couple of hours–'

'That shall be arranged.'

A soldier in a peaked cavalryman's cap peered out from the side of the locomotive through the now heavily falling snow. He said to Banlon: 'I think this must be the fuel dump coming up.'

Banlon joined them, nodded, returned to the controls and brought the train to a gentle stop, so positioning it that it brought up with locomotive and tender precisely opposite the fuel dump, an open-faced, three-sided shack piled high with cordwood. Banlon said: 'Fetch the loading detail, would you?'

The loading detail, about a dozen men in all, were on the scene in only a matter of seconds and a remarkably unhappy band of troopers they appeared to be. One had the impression that, given the option, they'd have taken on twice their number of hostile Indians rather than the chore on hand and their reluctance for the appointed task was wholly understandable: although it was now approaching noon, the sky was so dark and the now wind-whipped snow so heavy that the light was no better than that of late dusk and visibility no more than a few feet; and the cold was deepening with the passing of every moment. The soldiers, shivering with cold and stamping their feet, lined up with their backs to the developing blizzard and passed the cordwood arm to arm between the fuel store and the tender. And they moved very quickly indeed: no one had to tell them that the sooner they had finished, the sooner they were back in the comparative warmth of their coaches.

Some way back on the other side of the train. an indistinct figure moved quickly and silently along the track-side and climbed silently on to the platform at the front of the supply wagon. The door was locked. The man, wearing an army overcoat and a peaked cavalryman's cap, stooped, examined the lock, produced a heavy bunch of keys, selected one and inserted it. The door opened at once, and closed almost immediately as the man entered.

A match scratched, flared and a small oil-lamp came to life. Deakin brushed snow from his greatcoat – O'Brien had provided him with some protection against the elements – moved towards the centre of the wagon and looked around him.

To the rear of the coach, packed four deep and two wide in obviously makeshift racks on either side of the central aisle, were exactly thirty-two coffins, all of them identical in shape and size: whoever made coffins for the army apparently visualized all cavalrymen as being exactly the same shape, size and weight. Most of the rest of the wagon was given up to supplies of one kind and another. The right-hand side was given up to neatly stored piles of bagged and crated food supplies. All the left-hand side was stacked with brass-bound oiled wooden boxes, which took up a relatively small space, and unidentified objects lashed down under tarpaulins. The wooden boxes bore the legend: MEDICAL CORPS SUPPLIES: UNITED STATES ARMY. Deakin lifted a corner of the first tarpaulin. The boxes there, also oiled wood, bore the marking, in large red letters: DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! The next few tarpaulins covered boxes similarly marked. The last and smallest tarpaulin to be lifted revealed a tall narrow grey box with a leather carrying handle. It was marked: US ARMY POSTS & TELEGRAPHS.

Deakin lifted off the tarpaulin covering this box, rolled it, thrust it under his coat, picked up the grey box, doused the lamp and left, locking the door behind him. Even during the brief time he had been inside the supply wagon the visibility had become appreciably worse. It was as well, Deakin reflected, that they had the security of the railway lines to guide them on their way: in such weather, a horse and rider, or horses and coaches, would, like as not, have ended up in the depths of the ravine.

Lugging the heavy transmitter and now making little attempt at concealment, Deakin hurried along the length of the supply wagon and climbed up the front platform of the leading horse wagon. The door was unlocked. He passed inside, closed the door, lowered the transmitter, located and lit an oil-lamp.

Nearly all the horses were standing, the majority of them chewing mournfully on the hay from the managers bolted to the side of the wagon. They had little enough room to move in their individual stalls but seemed unconcerned about it. Nor did they show much concern for Deakin's presence. Such few as bothered to acknowledge his presence looked at him incuriously, then as idly turned their heads away.

Deakin paid no attention to the horses. He was much more interested in the source of their food supply, a wood-slatted haybox by his right shoulder that reached almost to the roof. He removed the two top slats, climbed on to the top of the hay and burrowed a deep hole at the back, hard against the side of the wagon. He swung down to the floor, wrapped the transmitter in the tarpaulin, carried it to the top of the haybox, buried it deep in the hole and covered it with hay to a depth of almost three feet. Even allowing for the most evil mischance, Deakin reckoned, the transmitter should remain undetected for at least twenty-four hours: and twenty-four hours would be all he would ever want.

He doused the lamp, left and made his way to the rear end of the second coach. He shook out his coat on the platform, went inside, hung the coat on a hook in the passageway outside the officers' sleeping cubicles and made his way forward, sniffing appreciatively as he went. He stopped and looked through an open doorway to his right.

The galley was small but spotless with an array of pots simmering gently on the wood-burning stove. The occupant, when he turned, proved to be a short and very plump Negro most incongruously dressed in a regulation galley uniform, complete even to the chef's tall white hat. He smiled widely at Deakin, teeth white and shining and perfect.

'Morning, sir.'

'Good morning. You must be Carlos, the chef?'

'That's right.' Carlos beamed happily. 'And you must be Mr Deakin, the murderer. Just in time for some coffee, sir.'

Claremont by his side, Banlon stood on the footplate of the locomotive, examining the tender. He turned and leaned out.

'That's the lot. Full. Many thanks.'

Sergeant Bellew raised a hand in acknowledgment, turned and said something to his men, who at once trudged thankfully away in the direction of their coaches, being lost to sight almost at once in the whitely swirling gloom.

Claremont said: 'Ready to roll then, Banlon?'

'Just as soon as this snow-squall clears. Colonel.'

'Of course. You said you wanted the brakeman to relieve you. This would be a good time.'

Banlon said very firmly: 'I did say that, but this would not be a good time, sir. For the next three miles, I want Devlin right where he is.'

'The next three miles?'

'To the top of Hangman's Pass. The steepest climb in all the mountains.'

Claremont nodded. 'A brakeman could have his uses.'