Breakheart Pass

by Alistair MacLean

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

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

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

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

  'Hurt?'

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

  Deakin smiled and looked at Claremont. 'You?'

  'Only my dignity.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  'Payment?'

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

  'Had to?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  'No such thing.'

  'There is now.'

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

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

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

  'I detached them.'

  'Inevitably. Why?'

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

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

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

  O'Brien was curt. 'No.'

  'There must be an answer.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  'I haven't been all that idle.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  NINE

  The aptly named Breakheart Pass, a barren and waterless gully, carried the railway line up to a small divide. The left or southern hand of the gully was bordered by an almost vertical cliff; the right-hand side by a fairly shallow slope leading down to the long dead watercourse, a course liberally strewn with large boulders which offered splendid cover – splendid, that was, for men but quite useless for horses. The nearest shelter of any other kind was offered by a thick clump of pines a mile distant across the valley. It was within the confines of this copse that White Hand waved his weary troop of horsemen to a grateful halt.

  White Hand dismounted. He pointed to the boulder-strewn gully. 'There the train will stop. There we will hide. We must go there on foot.' He turned to two of his men. 'The horses. Keep them here. Take them even deeper into the woods. They must not be seen.'

  In the dining compartment of the train Henry sat by the wood stove, drowsing. Fairchild, O'Brien and Pearce, seated and with their heads resting on their forearms, were asleep or appeared to be asleep over the dining tables. On the footplate, Deakin, very far from being asleep, was peering ahead through the cab window; snow was still falling and the visibility was poor. Marica, equally wide awake, was making the final adjustments to the white sheet which was so wrapped round Colonel Claremont that, his unencumbered arms apart, he appeared to be cocooned from head to foot. Deakin beckoned to him and pointed ahead.

  'Breakheart Pass coming up. Maybe two miles to go. For you, one mile. See that big clump of pines to the right of the track?' Claremont nodded. 'They'll have hidden their horses there. There'll be guards.' He nodded to Rafferty's rifle which Claremont held in his hands. 'Don't give them a sporting chance. Don't give them an even break.'

  Claremont shook his head slowly and said nothing. His face was no less implacable than that of Deakin.

  White Hand and another Indian were crouched behind a craggy rock on the boulder-strewn righthand slope of the gully. They were staring down towards the lower, easternmost entrance to the pass. The thinly falling snow let them see as far as the furthest bend of the track; so far there was nothing to be seen. Suddenly the other Indian reached out and touched White Hand on the shoulder. Both men turned their heads slightly and adopted an intensely listening attitude. Far off, faintly but unmistakably, the puffing of a straining locomotive engine could be heard. White Hand glanced at his companion and nodded, just once.

&n
bsp; Deakin reached under his coat and brought out the two sticks of blasting powder he had earlier filched from the supply wagon. One of these he carefully placed inside the tool-box, the other he held in his hand. With his free hand he gently eased the steam throttle all the way off. At once, the train began to slow down.

  O'Brien woke with a start, moved swiftly to the nearest window, hastily cleared away the condensation and peered out. Almost at once he turned to Pearce.

  'Wake up! Wake up! We're stopping! Nathan, know where we are?'

  'Breakheart Pass.' The two men looked questioningly at one another. Fairchild stirred, sat upright and came to the window. He said uneasily: 'What's that devil up to now?'

  Deakin was indeed up to something. With the train now almost brought to a complete standstill, he ignited the tube of blasting powder in his hand, judged his moment to what he regarded as a nicety, then tossed it out of the right-hand cab opening. At the same moment Claremont moved on to the steps of the left-hand side of the cab. Pearce, O'Brien, Fairchild and Henry, all with their faces pressed to the window, recoiled involuntarily and threw up defensive hands as there came a blinding flash of light and the flat sharp crack of an explosion immediately outside. The window did not shatter and after a moment or two they pressed close to it again. But by this time Claremont had dropped off the left-hand side of the cab, rolled down the embankment and come to rest at its foot. Wrapped in the white sheeting, he was almost entirely invisible and remained quite motionless. Deakin jerked the throttle open again.