Breakheart Pass

by Alistair MacLean

  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.'