Breakheart Pass

FIVE

Fort Humboldt lay at the head of a narrow and rock-strewn valley which debouched on to a plain to the west. The strategic position of the Fort had been excellently chosen. Behind it, to the north, was a sheer cliff-face: to the east and south it was bounded by a ravine, narrow but very deep, the eastern arm of which was traversed by a trestle railway bridge: the railway line itself passed eastwest in front of the Fort descending slowly down the winding valley into the plain beyond. From the point of view of defence Fort Humboldt could not have been more advantageously located. It could be approached only across the bridge or up the valley; facing in either direction, a small group of determined and well-entrenched men could have easily held off ten times their number.

Architecturally, the Fort itself had no claims to originality. Built years before the completion of the Union Pacific Railway in 1869, it had to depend entirely on local building materials, and the plentiful stands of conifers provided unlimited supplies of that. The wooden stockade was built in the customary form of a hollow square with a boardwalk, about four feet from the top of the stakes, running the entire length of the inside perimeter. The heavy gate, facing both railroad and the river which wound down the valley, lay to the south; immediately inside the gate there was, to the right, the guard-house and to the left the store for weapons, ammunition and explosives. The entire eastern side of the compound was given over to stables. To the western side were the troops' quarters and cookhouse; the northern side was given over to officers' quarters, administrative and telegraph offices, sick bay and some spare accommodation for the invariably weary travellers who made Fort Humboldt a port of call with a not surprising frequency; it was a long long way from any other place.

Approaching the Fort from the west – up valley – were a group of weary travellers who were clearly looking forward very keenly to whatever the Fort might offer them in the way of shelter and hospitality. They were Indians, wrapped to the ears in an unavailing attempt to protect themselves from the biting cold and the thinly falling snow. Tired, very tired, they looked, but not as exhausted as their horses, who were literally trudging through the fetlock-deep snow. Of them all, only their leader, an unusually pale-faced and strikingly handsome Indian, seemed unweary. He sat very erect in the saddle. But then, the chief of the Paiutes always did.

He led his men through the open and unguarded doorway, raised his hand in a gesture of dismissal and headed across the compound, bringing up at a wooden hut with, above the door, the legend COMMANDANT. The Indian dismounted, climbed the few steps and entered, closing the door quickly behind him to keep out the swirling snow.

Sepp Calhoun was seated in Colonel Fairchild's desk armchair, his feet on the Colonel's desk, one of the Colonel's cheroots in one hand and a glass of the Colonel's whisky in the other. He looked up, swung his feet to the floor and rose, a most unusual gesture of respect on the part of Sepp Calhoun, who customarily showed no respect towards anyone. But then, people did not show disrespect to this particular Indian. Not twice.

Calhoun said: 'Welcome home, White Hand. You made fast time.'

'In weather such as this the wise man does not linger.'

'All went well? The line to San Francisco–'

'Is cut.' Imperiously, almost contemptuously. White Hand waved away the proffered bottle of whisky. 'We destroyed the bridge over the Anitoba gorge.'

'You have done well, White Hand. You and your men. How much time do we have?'

'Before the soldiers from the west could reach here?'

'Yes. Not that there's any reason to assume that they think that there is anything wrong in Fort Humboldt and will be coming here anyway. But chances we cannot take.'

'The stakes are high, Sepp Calhoun.' He thought briefly. 'Three days. Not less.'

'More than enough. The train arrives tomorrow between noon and sundown.'

'The soldiers on the train ?'

'No word yet.' Calhoun hesitated, then cleared his throat apologetically. 'It would be as well, White Hand, if you and your braves have some hours of rest. You may need to ride again before dark.'

There was silence during which White Hand regarded a highly uncomfortable Calhoun with total impassivity, then he said: 'There are times, Calhoun, when White Hand questions your judgment. We had an agreement, you remember, about capturing this fort. You and your friends were to come here in the hours of darkness and seek lodging for the night. You would be invited to spend the night, for you are white men and the night was full of snow. So much came true. Then you were to kill the night guards, open the gates, let us in and fall upon the soldiers in their bunks.'

Calhoun reached for his bottle of bourbon.

'It was a wild night. White Hand. We could not see well. The night, as you say, was full of snow and there was a great storm blowing. We thought–'

'The storm was in your minds and the snow came from that bottle of fire-water. I could smell it. So two of the guards they did not kill and there was time for a warning. Not enough time, Calhoun, but enough that fifteen of my best men lie dead. Fire-water! Bourbon! And the white men are better than the red!'

'Now look. White Hand. You must understand–'

'I understand everything. I understand that you care only for yourself, your friends who are all bad men, but not for the Paiutes. Then we ride a night and a day to destroy the Anitoba bridge. This, too, we did. And now you ask us to ride again.'

Calhoun was at his most nervously soothing. 'Only perhaps. White Hand. Those troops must be prevented from arriving here. You know that.'

'I may lose more men, it is sure that I will lose more men. I may lose many more men. But not for you, Calhoun, not for your evil bourbon, but for what they have done to my people the army of the white men are my enemies and will be while White Hand lives. But they, too, are brave and skilful fighters. And if they find out that it is White Hand and the Paiutes who have attacked them they will never rest until they have hunted down and destroyed each last one of us. I say the price is too high, Sepp Calhoun.'

'And if there is no white man left to tell what happened?' Calhoun let this thought take hold, then went on softly, persuasively: 'The rewards are even higher.'

After a long pause. White Hand nodded several times. 'The rewards are even higher.'

Fifteen minutes after the troop train had embarked on its laborious crawl up Hangman's Pass, Marica stood gazing through the day compartment window, oblivious both of the six men seated behind her and the icy chill of glass against which her forehead rested. She said to no one in particular: 'What a fantastic view!'

She could hardly be faulted for her comment. The blizzard-like squall had passed away and from where she stood she could see the track curving round and downwards for the space of almost two miles as it followed the breathtaking contours of the conifer-lined white valley until it reached the spidery bridge spanning the gorge at the foot of the valley. As was so often the case after snow had ceased to fall, everything could be seen with preternatural clarity.

Claremont was uninterested in the view; he had more pressing and disturbing matters on his mind. He said: 'Made any progress with your enquiries. Marshal?'

'No, sir.' Pearce wasn't demonstrably unhappy, because it wasn't in his nature either to feel or express such an emotion, but he certainly couldn't have been described as ebullient. 'Nobody knows anything, nobody's seen anything, nobody did anything, nobody heard anything and nobody as much as suspects anybody else. No, sir, you can take it that I haven't made any progress.'

'Oh, I don't know.' Deakin spoke encouragingly. 'Every little elimination helps, doesn't it, Marshal? For instance, I was tied up, so it couldn't have been me. Means you've got only eighty-odd suspects left. Marshal. For a man of–'

Deakin broke off as a sharp report was heard. Claremont, already half out of his seat, said in the voice of a man who knew that impending doom was no longer at hand but had arrived: 'In God's name, what was that?'

Marica must have left him in no doubt as to the accuracy of his diagnosis. Her voice rose to a scream. 'No! No! No!'

Apart from Claremont, Pearce and Deakin there were three other men in the compartment – O'Brien, the Governor and the Rev. Peabody. Within two seconds the last of them had propelled himself to his feet and flung himself towards the nearest window on Marica's side. The faces of the six reflected, or appeared to reflect, all the consternation, shock and horror that Marica's voice had held.

The last three wagons of the train – the two troop-carrying coaches and the brakevan – had broken away from the main body of the train and were already rolling quite quickly back down the long steep descent of Hangman's Pass. The rapidly widening gap between the leading troop coach and the second of the horsewagons showed just how rapidly the three runaway wagons were accelerating.

Deakin shouted: 'For God's sake, jump! Jump now! Before it's too late.'

But nobody jumped.

The middle wagon of the three runaways – the second troop coach in which Sergeant Bellew was quartered – was already beginning to sway and rattle in the most alarming fashion. The clicketyclick of the wheels crossing the expansion joints in the lines increased in tempo with the passing of every moment; and as the fish-plates which held the lines were secured to the sleepers by spikes and not by bolts there was a mounting danger that the track itself might begin to work loose from the bed.

The confusion among the soldiers in the coach was total, their expressions ranging from the dumbfounded to the panic-stricken. Most of the men – all of them struggling to maintain their balance – were milling about wildly without any set purpose or intent, but two pairs of soldiers, lashed by the urgency of Bellew's voice, struggled desperately to open two side doors. After only a few fruitless moments they gave up. One of the soldiers raised his voice above the bedlam of sound.

'Godalmighty!' His voice was only one degree short of a shriek. 'The doors are locked! From the outside!'

In fascinated horror, the six men and the girl in the day compartment, completely without any power to help, continued to watch the runaways, now quarter way round the quarter circle curve of Hangman's Pass and at least a mile distant, remorselessly accelerating and terrifyingly swaying to the extent that wheels were now beginning to lift clear of the track.

Claremont shouted : 'Devlin! The brakeman! Why in God's name doesn't he do something?'

The same thought, though understandably with even more urgency, was in the mind of Sergeant Bellew.

'The brakeman! The brakeman! Why doesn't he do – what in God's name is he doing?'

Bellew ran or more correctly staggered along the wildly shaking and vibrating aisle towards the rear door, a matter made easier by the fact that the central space was clear, nearly all the soldiers having their terrified faces pressed close against the windows, their minds mesmerized by the blurring landscape and hypnotized by shock into the blind acceptance of the inevitable.

Bellew reached the rear door. He tugged desperately and completely without avail at the handle; this door, too, was locked. Bellew drew his Colt and shot above and to the side of the handle. He fired four times, oblivious of two ricochets which whistled with lethal potential through the coach; by this time there were more deadly dangers abroad than ricochets. After the fourth shot the door yielded to the desperate pressure of Bellew's hand.

He emerged on to the rear platform and was almost immediately thrown off by the combination of a wind which had now reached near-hurricane force and an exceptionally violent lurch of the coach. To save himself he had to grab desperately at the rail with both hands. His Colt had been in his right hand: now it went spinning over the side.

Bellew took a suicidal chance, but between sudden death by suicide and sudden death through external causes there lies no difference. He flung himself towards the front platform on the brake van, caught the rail, dragged himself to temporary safety and seized the door of the brake van. This he twisted, pulled and pushed with a close to fear-crazed violence, but this door, by now predictably, was also locked. Bellew flattened his face against the glass panel to the side of the door and peered inside; his eyes widened and his face became masked in the total and final despair of a knowledge that comes too late.

The big brake wheel was at the end of the van but there was no hand on this wheel. Instead, the hand clutched a Bible, which was opened, face down, on the floor of the van. Devlin himself, also face down, lay beside his makeshift bed; between the thin shoulders protruded the hilt of a knife.

Bellew turned his stricken face sideways and stared, almost uncomprehendingly, at the snowladen pines lining the track-side stream whizzing by in a hundred-mile-an-hour blur. Bellew crossed himself, something he hadn't done since boyhood, and now the fear was gone from his face. In its place there was only resignation, the acceptance of the inevitability of death.

In the day compartment the seven horrified watchers were without speech for there was no longer anything to say. Like Bellew, although with a vastly different outlook, they too had dumbly accepted the inevitability of death.

The runaway coaches, two miles away now and still somehow miraculously remaining on the track, were hurtling towards the final curve leading to the bridge. Marica jerked convulsively away from the window and buried her face in her hands as the runaways failed to negotiate the last bend. They shot off the track – whether they ripped the track off with them or not it was impossible to tell at that distance – toppled sideways as they then sailed out across the void of the gorge, turning over almost lazily in mid-air until the three coaches, still locked together, had assumed a vertical position, a position they still occupied when all three smashed simultaneously into the precipitous far cliff-side of the gorge with the explosive thunderclap of sound of a detonating ammunition dump. Unquestionably, for every man aboard those coaches death must have super- vened instantaneously. For a long second of time the flattened, mangled coaches remained in that position, seemingly pinned against the canyon wall as if unwilling to move, then, with a deliberation and slowness in grotesque contrast to their speed at the moment of impact, dropped reluctantly off and tumbled lazily into the unseen depths below.

The eleven survivors of the original trainload from Reese City, most of them shivering violently, were gathered round the rear end of the second horse wagon – now, in effect, the end of the train – examining the coupling, the free end of which had formerly been bolted to the front of the leading troop wagon. Three of the four massive securing bolts were still loosely in place in the plate. Claremont stared unbelievingly at the plate and the bolts.

'But how, how, how could it have happened? Look at the size of those bolts!'

O'Brien said: 'Not that I have any intention of going down into that ravine to investigate – even although all the evidence is smashed to pieces anyway – but what I'd have liked to see was the condition of the timber to which those bolts were attached.'

'But I thought I heard a report–'

'Or,' Deakin suggested, 'a baulk of heavy timber snapping in half.'

'Of course.' Claremont dropped the chain and plate. 'Of course. That's what it must have been. But why should it – Banlon, you're the engineer. In fact, you're the only trainman we have left.'

'Before God, I've no idea. The wood may have rotted – it can happen without showing any signs – and this is the steepest climb in the mountains. But I'm only guessing. What I can't understand is why Devlin did nothing about it.'

Claremont was sombre in both face and voice. 'Some answers we'll never know. What's past is past. First thing is to have another try to contact Reese City or Ogden – we must have replacements for those poor devils at once, God rest their souls. What a way to die! The only way for a cavalryman to die is in the face of the enemy' Claremont wasn't quite as pragmatic as he would have liked to sound and he had to make a conscious effort to return himself to the realities of the present. 'At least, thank God, we didn't lose those medical supplies.'

Deakin was clearly in no mood to commiserate with Claremont. 'Wouldn't have made any difference if you had.'

'Meaning?'

'Medical supplies aren't much good without a doctor to administer them.'

Claremont paused for a few seconds. 'You're a doctor.'

'Not any more I'm not.'

They had a close circle of listeners. Even a trace of interest was beginning to show in Marica's still rather shocked face.

Claremont was becoming heated. 'But, damn it all, Deakin, that's cholera they have up there. Your fellow man–'

'My fellow man's going to hang me. Probably, in spite of Pearce's protestations, from the nearest cottonwood tree. The hell with my fellow man. Besides, as you say, that's cholera they've got up there.'

Claremont showed as much contempt as it is possible for a man to do without actually sneering. 'And that's your real reason?'

'I think it's a very good reason.'

Claremont turned away in disgust and looked around the shivering company. 'Morse I've never learnt. Can anyone–'

'I'm no Ferguson,' O'Brien said. 'But if you give me time–'

'Thank you, Major. Henry, you'll find the set in the front of the supply wagon, under a tarpaulin. Bring it through to the day compartment, will you?' He turned to Banlon, his mouth bitter. 'I suppose the only good point about this ghastly business is that we'll be able to make better time to the Fort. With those wagons gone–'

Banlon said heavily: 'We won't make better time. Devlin was the only other person aboard who could drive this train – and I've got to have sleep some time.'

'My God, I'd quite forgotten. Now?'

'I can make twice the speed in the day that I can by night. I'll try to hang on to nightfall. By that time–' he nodded to his fireman soldier standing by–'Rafferty and I are going to be pretty bushed. Colonel.'

'I understand.' He looked at the dangling chain and the plate on the ground. 'And how about the safety factor, Banlon?'

Banlon spent quite some time rubbing the white bristles on his wizened face, then said: 'I can't see it, Colonel. Any problem, that is. Four things. This has been a million to one chance – I've never heard of it before – and it's one to a million that it will happen again. I've got a lot less weight to pull so the strain on the couplings is going to be that much less. This is the steepest gradient on the line and once we're over the top it's going to be that much easier.'

'You said four things. That's three.'

'Sorry, sir.' Banlon rubbed his eyes. 'Tired, that's all. What I'm going to do now is to get a spike and hammer and test the woodwork around each coupling plate. Only sure way to test for rot, Colonel.'

'Thank you, Banlon.' He transferred his attention to the returning Henry who wore upon his face the expression of a man whom fate can touch no more. 'Ready?'

'No.'

'What do you mean – no?'

'I mean the set's gone.'

'What!'

'It's not in the supply wagon, that's for sure.'

'Impossible.'

Henry stared silently into the middle distance.

'Are you sure?' It wasn't so much disbelief in Claremont's tone as a groping lack of understanding, the wearied bafflement of a man to whom too many incomprehensible things have happened too quickly.

Henry assumed an air of injured patience which sat well upon his lugubrious countenance. 'I do not wish to seem impertinent to the Colonel but I suggest the Colonel goes see for himself.'

Claremont manfully quelled what was clearly an incipient attack of apoplexy. 'All of you! Search the train!'

'Two things. Colonel,' Deakin said. He looked around and ticked numbers off his fingers. 'First is, of the ten people you're talking to, Rafferty is the only one you can order about. None of the rest of us is under your command, directly or indirectly, which makes it a bit awkward for martinet colonels accustomed to instant obedience. Second thing is, I don't think you need bother searching.'

Claremont did some even more manful quelling, then finally and silently gave Deakin a coldly interrogative look.

Deakin said: 'When we were refuelling this morning I saw someone take a case about the size of a transmitter from the supply wagon and walk back along the track with it. The snow was pretty thick and the visibility – well, we all remember what that was like. I just couldn't see who it was.'

'Yes? Assuming it was Ferguson, why should he do a thing like that?'

'How should I know? Ferguson or no Ferguson, I didn't speak to this person. Why should I do your thinking for you?'

'You become increasingly impertinent, Deakin.'

'I don't see there's a great deal you can do about that.' Deakin shrugged. 'Maybe he wanted to repair it.'

'And why take it away to do that?'

Deakin showed an uncharacteristic flash of irritation. 'How the hell should–' He broke off. 'Is the supply wagon heated?'

'No.'

'And it's way below freezing. If he wanted to carry out some repairs or maintenance he'd take it to a heated place – one of the troop wagons. And they're both at the bottom of that ravine now – including the transmitter. There's your answer.'

Claremont had himself well under control. He said thoughtfully: 'And you're pretty glib with your answers, Deakin.'

'Oh my God! Go and search your damned train, then.'

'No. You're probably right, if only because there would appear to be no other explanations.' He took a step closer to Deakin. 'Something's familiar about your face.' Deakin looked at him briefly then looked away in silence. 'Were you ever in the army, Deakin?'

'No.'

'Union or Confederate, I mean?'

'Neither.'

'Neither?'

'I've told you, I'm not a man of violence.'

'Then where were you in the War between the States?'

Deakin paused as if trying to recall, then finally said: 'California. The goings-on in the east didn't seem all that important out there.'

Claremont shook his head. 'How you cherish the safety of your own skin, Deakin.'

'A man could cherish worse things in life,' Deakin said indifferently. He turned and walked slowly up the track. Henry, his lugubrious eyes very thoughtful, watched him go. He turned to O'Brien and spoke softly:

'I'm like the Colonel. I've seen him before, too.'

'Who is he?'

'I don't know. I can't put a name to him and I can't remember where I saw him. But it'll come back.'

Shortly after noon it had started to snow again but not heavily enough to impair forward visibility from the cab. The train, now with only five coaches behind the tender, was making fair speed up the winding bed of a valley, a long plume of smoke trailing out behind. In the dining saloon all but one of the surviving passengers were sitting down to a sombre meal. Claremont turned to Henry.

'Tell Mr Peabody that we're eating.' Henry left and Claremont said to the Governor: 'Though God knows I've got no appetite.'

'Nor I, Colonel, nor I.' The Governor's appearance did not belie his words. The anxiety of the previous night was still there but now overlaid with a new-found haggard pallor. The portmanteau bags under his eyes were dark and veined and what little could be seen of the jowls behind the splendid white beard was more pendulous than ever. He was looking less like Buffalo Bill by the minute. He continued: 'What a dreadful journey, what a dreadful journey! All the troops, all those splendid boys gone. Captain Oakland and Lieutenant Newell missing – and they may be dead for all we know. Then Dr Molyneux – he is dead. Not only dead, but murdered. And the Marshal has no idea who – who – My God! He might even be sitting here. The murderer, I mean.'

Pearce said mildly: 'The odds are about ten to one that he isn't. Governor. The odds are ten to one that he's lying back in the ravine there.'

'How do you know?' The Governor shook his head in slow despair. 'How can anyone know? One wonders what in the name of God is going to happen next.'

'I don't know,' Pearce said. 'But judging from the expression on Henry's face, it's happened already.'

Henry, who had that moment returned, had a hunted air about him. His hands were convulsively opening and closing. He said in a husky voice: 'I can't find him, sir. The preacher, I mean. He's not in his sleeping quarters.'

Governor Fairchild gave an audible moan. Both he and Claremont looked at each other with the same dark foreboding mirrored in their eyes. Deakin's face, for a moment, might have been carved from stone, his eyes bleak and cold. Then he relaxed and said easily: 'He can't be far. I was talking to him only fifteen minutes ago.'

Pearce said sourly: 'So I noticed. What about?'

'Trying to save my soul,' Deakin explained. 'Even when I pointed out that murderers have no soul he–'

'Be quiet!' Claremont's voice was almost a shout. 'Search the train!'

'And stop it, sir?'

'Stop it, O'Brien?'

'Things happen aboard this train, Colonel.'

O'Brien didn't try to give any special significance to his words, he didn't have to. 'He may be on it. He may not. If he's not, he must be by the track; he can't very well have fallen down a ravine for there have been none for over an hour. If he were to be found outside, then we'd have to reverse down the line and every yard further we go on–'

'Of course. Henry, tell Banlon.'

Henry ran forward while the Governor, Claremont, O'Brien and Pearce moved towards the rear. Deakin remained where he was, evidently with no intention of going anywhere. Marica looked at him with an expression that was far from friendly. The dark eyes were as stony as it was possible for warm dark eyes to be, the lips compressed. When she spoke it was with a quite hostile incredulity.

She said in a tone that befitted her expression: 'He may be sick, injured, dying perhaps. And you just sit there. Aren't you going to help them look for him?'

Deakin leaned back leisurely in his chair, his legs crossed, produced and lit a cheroot. He said in what appeared to be genuine surprise: 'Me? Certainly not. What's he to me? Or I to him? The hell with the Reverend.'

'But he's such a nice man.' It was difficult to say whether Marica was more aghast at the impiety or the callous indifference. 'Why, he sat there and talked to you–'

'He invited himself. Now let him look after himself.'

Marica said in disbelief, slowly spacing the words: 'You just don't care.'

'That's it.'

'The Marshal was right and I was wrong. I should have listened to a man of the world. Hanging is too good for you. You must be the most self-centred, the most utterly selfish man in the world.'

Deakin said reasonably: 'Well, it's better to be best at something than best at nothing. Which reminds me of something else that is very good indeed.' He rose. 'The Governor's bourbon. Now seems like an excellent chance to help myself when they're all busy.'

He left along the passageway past the Governor's and Marica's sleeping quarters. Marica remained where she was for a few moments, the anger in her face now with an element of puzzlement in it, hesitated, rose and walked quietly after Deakin. By the time she had reached the door of the officers' day compartment, Deakin had crossed to the cabinet above the sofa at the front end of the coach, poured some bourbon into a tumbler and drained the contents in one savage gulp. Marica watched, her face n ow showing only wonderment and an increasing lack of comprehension, as Deakin poured himself some more bourbon, drank half of it and turned to the right, gazing with seemingly unseeing eyes through the window. The lean, dark, bitter face was set in lines of an almost frighteningly implacable cruelty.

Eyes widening under a furrowed brow, Marica advanced slowly and silently into the compartment and was less than four feet away from him when Deakin turned, the same almost viciously hard expression on his face. Marica recoiled before it, taking a step back almost as if expecting to be struck. Several seconds elapsed before Deakin appeared to become aware of her presence. His face gradually assumed its normal expression – or lack of it. He said, affably: 'Quite a start you gave me, ma'am.'

She did not answer at once. She advanced like a sleep-walker, her face still full of wonder, lifted a hand and tentatively, almost apprehensively, touched his lapel. She whispered: 'Who are you?'

He shrugged. 'John Deakin.'

'What are you?'

'You heard what the Marshal said–'

He broke off as the sound of voices came from the passageway, loud voices that carried with them the connotation of gesticulating hands. Claremont entered, followed by the Governor, Pearce and O'Brien. Claremont was saying: 'If he's not here, he must have fallen off and be lying by the track-side. And he's not here. If we back up, say, five miles–'

Fairchild interrupted, one more vexation added to his sea of troubles. 'Damn you, Deakin. That's my whisky!'

Deakin gave an acknowledging nod. 'And excellent stuff it is, too. You don't have to be afraid of offering this to anyone.'

Without a word and without warning Pearce stepped forward and savagely struck Deakin's right wrist, sending the glass flying.

Marica's reaction was involuntary, as surprising to her as it was to the others. She said in sudden anger: 'What a brave man you are. Marshal – with that big gun hanging by your side.'

With the exception of Deakin, everyone stared at her in astonishment. Pearce looked back towards Deakin, the surprise on his face giving way to contempt, a contempt reflected in his gesture as he pulled the Colt from its holster, threw it on the couch and smiled invitingly at Deakin. Deakin made no response. Pearce swung his left hand and hit Deakin, hard, across the lower face with the back of his clenched fist, a humiliating blow with which to strike any man. Deakin staggered and sat down heavily on the sofa, then, after a few seconds during which the other men averted their faces in shame for lost manhood, rose, dabbed some blood from a split lip and walked across to the other corner of the compartment, near the entrance to the passageway where, to the accompaniment of the screeching of brakes, the others brushed by him as they hurried to take up observation positions on the platforms. Marica came slowly after them and stopped in front of Deakin. From her reticule she brought out a flimsy wisp of cambric and patted the cut lip. When she spoke, it was in a very quiet tone.

'Poor man,' she said. 'So little time to live.'

'I'm not dead yet.'

'I didn't mean you. I meant the Marshal.'

She walked down the passageway and entered her sleeping compartment without looking back. Deakin looked after her thoughtfully, then crossed to the liquor cabinet and helped himself to some more bourbon.

While Deakin was lowering the level in the Governor's bottle, Banlon backed the train slowly down the valley. Four men stood at the very end of the train, the rear platform of the second horse wagon, heavily wrapped against the biting cold and the thinly falling snow: Claremont and Pearce studied the track-side to the right, the Governor and O'Brien the side to the left. But as mile succeeded crawling mile there was nothing to be seen. The snow on both sides was virginal, untouched except for the faint dusting of soot from the locomotive's earlier passage; nor was the snow heavy enough to have concealed any recent disturbances in the ankle-deep snow on the ground, far less have covered the body of a man. In short, there was no sign of the Reverend Peabody or any mark made by him had he fallen – or been pushed – from the train.

Claremont straightened and turned at the same instant as O'Brien, on the other side of the platform, did the same. Claremont shook his head slowly and O'Brien nodded in reluctant agreement; the latter turned again, leaned far out over the platform safety rail and waved his arm. Banlon, who had for the past fifteen or twenty minutes been looking towards the rear of the train, gave an acknowledging wave of his arm. The train jolted to a halt, then began to move forward again. Reluctantly, the four men on the rear platform moved away from the safety rails and returned to the comparative warmth of the horse wagon.

As soon as they returned to the day compartment Claremont had assembled there, with the exception of Banlon and his soldier-fireman Rafferty, the only eight remaining survivors of the original trainload. The atmosphere was heavy with suspicion and menace, not unmixed with fear. Every person present appeared to be carefully avoiding the eyes of every other person, with the exception of Deakin, who didn't appear to care where he looked.

Claremont passed a weary hand across his forehead.

'It's impossible. It's just absolutely impossible. We know that Peabody is not on the train. We know he can't have left the train. And nobody saw him after he left this compartment. A man can't just vanish like that.' Claremont looked round the listeners, but there was no help from there, no reaction except the embarrassed shuffling of the feet of Carlos, the Negro cook, who was clearly embarrassed by the unaccustomed presence of the gentry. Claremont repeated: 'Well, he can't, can he?'

'Can't he?' Fairchild said heavily. 'He's done it, hasn't he?'

Deakin said: 'Well, yes and no.'

Pearce's antagonism flared instantly. 'What do you mean – yes and no? What do you know about this disappearance, mister?'

'Nothing. How could I? I was here from the time Peabody left till the time Henry reported his disappearance. Miss Fairchild will vouch for that.'

Pearce made to speak but Claremont lifted a restraining hand and turned to Deakin. 'You have something in mind?'

'I have something in mind. True, we haven't crossed any ravines during the time that Peabody could have disappeared. But we did cross over two small trellis bridges in that stretch. The outside of the train is practically level with the sides of the bridges – and neither of those have guard rails. He could have gone from the train over the edge without leaving a trace.'

O'Brien made no attempt to conceal the disbelief in his voice. 'An interesting theory, Deakin. All you have to explain now is why he jumped from–'

'He didn't jump. He was pushed. More likely, someone just picked him up and threw him over the edge. He was, after all, a very little man. A big strong person could have thrown him well clear. I wonder who that person could have been. Not me. I've an alibi. Not Miss Fairchild. She's not a big strong man and, anyway, I'm her alibi, although I suppose my testimony is worthless in your eyes. But you're big strong men. All of you. Six big strong men.' He paused and surveyed them severally and leisurely. 'I wonder which one of you it was.'

The Governor didn't splutter but he came close. 'Preposterous! Absolutely preposterous!'

Claremont said icily: The man's crazy.'

'I'm only trying to find a theory to fit the known facts/ Deakin said mildly. 'Anyone got a better one?'

From the uneasy silence it was apparent that no one had a better one. Marica said: 'But who on earth would want to – to kill a harmless little man like Mr Peabody?'

'I don't know. Who on earth would do away with a harmless old doctor like Molyneux? Who on earth would want to do away with two – I presume – harmless cavalry officers like Oakland and Newell?'

Pearce's suspicions were immediate and inevitable. 'Who said anything's happened to them?'

Deakin regarded him for a long and, it seemed, pitying moment; he appeared bent on making it clear that the strength of his determination not to become involved physically with Pearce was matched only by his total disregard for the man, an attitude that Pearce was manifestly finding more intolerable by the moment. Deakin said: 'If you believe, after all that's happened, that their disappearance is just the long arm of coincidence, then it's time you turned over your badge to someone who isn't solid bone between the ears. Why, Marshal, you might be the man we want.'

Pearce, his face ugly, stepped forward, his fist swinging, but Claremont quickly interposed himself between him and Deakin and whatever Claremont lacked it was certainly not authority.

'That will be quite enough, Marshal. There's been too much violence already.'

'I agree entirely with Colonel Claremont.' Fairchild puffed out his cheeks and spoke weightily in his impressively gubernatorial manner. 'I think we're being panicked. We don't know that anything of what this – this felon is suggesting is true. We don't know that Molyneux was murdered–' Fairchild had a splendid gift for emphasis with a telling pause after each word so emphasized – 'and we've only Deakin's word for that, we've only Deakin's word that he, Deakin, was a doctor – and we all know what Deakin's word is worth.'

'You're maligning my character in public, Governor,' Deakin said. 'There's a law in the constitution that says you – that's me – can seek redress for such unsubstantiated imputations. I have six witnesses to the fact that you have slandered me.' Deakin looked around him. 'Mind you I wouldn't say that they are all unbiased.'

'The law! The law!' Fairchild had turned an unbecoming turkey red and the popping bloodshot blue eyes appeared to be in some danger of coming adrift from their moorings. 'A scofflaw like you, a murderer, an arsonist, daring to invoke the sacred constitution of our United States!' He paused, probably because of the awareness that he was operating some little way below his thes-pian best. 'We don't know that Oakland and Newell were murdered. We don't actually know that Peabody was the victim of–'

'You're whistling in the dark/ Deakin said contemptuously. He looked at the Governor consideringly. 'Or maybe you don't intend to lock the door of your sleeping compartment tonight.' The Governor failed to take advantage of the longensuing pause and Deakin went on: 'Unless, of course, you're in a position to know that you personally have nothing to worry about.'

Fairchild stared at him. 'By God, Deakin, you'll pay for that insinuation.'

Deakin said wearily: 'Hark at who's talking about insinuations. Pay for it? With what? My neck? That's already spoken for. My God, it's wonderful. Here you all are, bent on delivering me up to justice, while one of you a killer with the blood of four men on his hands. Maybe not four men. Maybe eighty-four men.'

'Eighty-four men?' Fairchild exercised the last of his rapidly waning hauteur.

'As you put it yourself. Governor, we don't know that the loss of the troop wagons was an accident.' Deakin gazed off into the middle distance, then focused again on the Governor. 'Just as we don't know that there is only one of you eight – even though they are not here, we cannot exclude Banlon and Rafferty although we must of course exclude Miss Fairchild – solely responsible for the killings. There may be two or more of you felons acting in concert, in which case all of you would be equally guilty in the eyes of the law. My training in medical jurisprudence. Not that any of you would believe it.'

With an unhurried ostentation Deakin turned his back on the company, leaned his elbows on the brass grab-rail and peered out into the thickening, snow-laden twilight.