Breakheart Pass (19 page)

'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.

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.

The bafflement of the four men in the dining compartment was of a lesser nature altogether than that of White Hand and his Indian companion. White Hand said uncertainly: 'It may be that our friends wanted to warn us of their approach. See, they are moving again.'

'Yes. And I see something else.' The other Indian jumped to his feet. 'The troop wagons! The soldier wagons! They're not there!'

'Get down, fool!' White Hand's habitual impassivity had, for the moment, completely deserted him. His face was baffled, uncomprehending, as he saw that the train, now well into Breakheart Pass, clearly consisted of no more than three coaches.

O'Brien's face was now equally uncomprehending. He said: 'How the hell should
I
know what he's up to? The man's a lunatic'

Fairchild said: 'You could try to find out, couldn't you?'

Pearce handed Fairchild one of his guns. 'Tell you what, Governor. You find out.'

The Governor grabbed the gun. For that brief passing moment he was clearly out of his mind. 'Very well, then. I shall.'

He took the gun, moved forward, opened the front door of the leading coach no more than a crack and slid an apprehensive eye round the edge. A second later there was the boom of a Colt and a bullet struck the coach less than a foot from his head: Fairchild withdrew with speed, banging the door behind him, his momentary period of insanity clearly behind him. Severely shaken, he re-entered the dining compartment.

Pearce said: 'Well, what did you find out?'

The Governor said nothing. He threw the gun on the table and made for the whisky bottle.

Up front, Deakin said: 'Company?'

'My uncle.' Marica examined the still smoking Colt with aversion.

'Get him?'

'No.'

'Pity.'

Claremont, still swathed in his white camouflage, inched slowly towards the edge of the embankment and hitched a wary eye over the top. The train, almost a mile away by that time, was well into the pass. He scanned the boulders in the dry watercourse ahead but could detect no sign of movement. He had not expected to see any, not yet; White Hand was far too experienced to make his presence known until the last moment possible. Claremont then looked across the valley to the distant clump of pine trees. If Deakin were right and horses there were, that was where the horses would be held in concealment; and Claremont no longer questioned Deakin's judgment. The approach to the pines would be difficult but not impossible: a smaller branching watercourse led up to the very edge of the copse and if he could reach the foot of this dry gully unobserved he should be under concealment for the rest of the way. The only danger lay in crossing the railway line, and while he was far too experienced a soldier to discount the possibility of any danger, he thought that the odds on a safe traverse of the track lay in his favour. The guard or guards in charge of the horses would, in the normal course of events, be taking a lively interest in what was happening, or what was about to happen across the valley. But their attention would almost certainly be fixed on the train and the hidden Paiutes and those were now a mile away to his left. Besides, it was still only dawn and the snow had not yet ceased to fall. Claremont did not hesitate, if for no other reason than that he knew that there were no options left open to him. Wraith-like, and using only his elbows and knees, he began to slither across the track.

Deakin eased back the throttle. Marica, from her observation post at the back of the tender, spared him a brief glance. 'Stopping?'

'Slowing.' He indicated the right-hand side of the cab. 'Leave the tender and get down there. On the floor.'

Hesitantly, she moved forward. 'You think there'll be shooting?'

'Well, there won't be too many rose petals thrown, and that's a fact.'

The train was now crawling along at between ten and fifteen miles an hour but clearly was not about to come to a complete halt, a fact that was becoming increasingly obvious to White Hand. His face registered at first faint puzzlement, then exasperation, then finally outright anger.

'The fools!' he said. 'The fools! Why don't they stop?' He jumped to his feet, waving his arm. The train continued on its way. White Hand shouted to his warriors to follow him. They all broke concealment and came running and stumbling up the slope as quickly as the shingly and snowcovered terrain would permit them. Deakin judiciously opened the throttle a notch or two.

Once again O'Brien, Pearce, the Governor and Henry were peering with what was by now a degree of justifiable anxiety through the window. Pearce said: 'White Hand! White Hand and his braves! What in God's name is the meaning of this?' He ran towards the rear platform, the others closely behind him. As they arrived there the train perceptibly began to slow.