ALISTAIR MACLEAN
Breakheart Pass

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1974

and by Fontana 1976

Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 1974

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020 Cover photograph © Stephen Mulcahey

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780006158059

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007402632

Version: 2020-07-29

Dedication

To Mary Marcelle

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

THE CHARACTERS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By Alistair MacLean

About the Publisher

THE CHARACTERS

JOHN DEAKIN | A Gunman
COLONEL CLAREMONT | US Cavalry
COLONEL FAIRCHILD | Commandant of Fort Humboldt
GOVERNOR FAIRCHILD | The Governor of Nevada
MARICA FAIRCHILD | The Governor’s niece and the daughter of Colonel Fairchild
MAJOR O’BRIEN | The Governor’s Aide
NATHAN PEARCE | US Marshal
SEPP CALHOUN | A villain of some note
WHITE HAND | Chief of the Paiutes
GARRITTY | A gambler
REV. THEODORE PEABODY | Chaplain elect for Virginia City
DOCTOR MOLYNEUX | US Army Doctor
CHRIS BANLON | Engineer
CARLOS | Cook
HENRY | Steward
BELLEW | US Army Sergeant
DEVLIN | Brakeman on train
RAFFERTY | A trooper
FERGUSON CARTERSIMPSON | US Army Telegraphists
BENSONCARMODYHARRIS | Three minor villains
CAPTAIN OAKLAND | Passive but relevant
LIEUTENANT NEWELL |

The following bears very closely on the choice of 1873 as the date for this story.

CALIFORNIAN GOLD RUSH | 1855-75
COMSTOCK LODE DISCOVERED | 1859
DISAFFECTED NEVADA INDIANS ACTIVE | 1860-80
NEVADA BECAME STATE | 1864
UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY BUILT | 1869
BONANZA DISCOVERED | 1873
CHOLERA IN ROCKIES | 1873
DEVELOPMENT OF FIRST WINCHESTER REPEATERS | 1873
UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA (ELKO) ESTABLISHED | 1873
DISASTROUS FIRE IN LAKE’S CROSSING (WHICH BECAME RENO IN 1879) | 1873

NB. It might appear odd that a US Army relief mission should be sent to attend a cholera outbreak, but this is not so: the State of Nevada Health Service was not established until 1893.

ONE

The saloon bar of Reese City’s grandiosely named Imperial Hotel had about it an air of defeat, of uncaring dilapidation, of the hauntingly sad nostalgia for the half-forgotten glories of days long gone by, of days that would never come again. The occasionally plastered walls were cracked and dirty and liberally behung with faded pictures of what appeared to be an assortment of droop-moustached desperadoes: the lack of ‘Wanted’ notices below the pictures struck an almost jarring note. The splintered planks that passed for a floor were incredibly warped and of a hue that made the walls appear relatively freshly painted: much missed-at spittoons were much in evidence, while there were few square inches without their cigar butts: those lay about in their hundreds, the vast majority bearing beneath them charred evidence to the fact that their owners hadn’t bothered to stub them out either before or after dropping them to the floor. The shades of the oil-lamps,like the murky roof above, were blackened by soot, the full-length mirror behind the bar was fly-blown and filthy. For the weary traveller seeking a haven of rest, the saloon bar offered nothing but a total lack of hygiene, an advanced degree of decadence and an almost stultifying sense of depression and despair.

Neither did the majority of the customers. They were remarkably in keeping with the general ambience of the saloon. Most of them were disproportionately elderly, markedly dispirited, unshaven and shabby, all but a lonely few contemplating the future, clearly a bleak and hopeless one, through the bottoms of their whisky glasses. The solitary barman, a myopic individual with a chest-high apron which, presumably to cope with laundry problems, he’d prudently had dyed black in the distant past, appeared to share in the general malaise: wielding a venerable hand-towel in which some faint traces of near-white could with difficulty be distinguished, he was gloomily attempting the impossible task of polishing a sadly cracked and chipped glass, his ultra-slow movements those of an arthritic zombie. Between the Imperial Hotel and, also of that precise day and age, the Dickensian concept of a roistering, hospitable and heart-warming coaching inn of Victorian England lay a gulf of unbridgeable immensity.

In all the saloon there was only one isolated oasis of conversational life. Six people were seated round a table close by the door, three of them in a high-backed bench against the wall: the central figure of those three was unquestionably the dominant one at the table. Tall and lean, deeply tanned and with the heavily crow-footed eyes of a man who has spent too long in the sun, he was dressed in the uniform of a colonel of the United States Cavalry, was aged about fifty, was -unusually for that time - clean-shaven and had an aquiline and intelligent face crowned by a mass of brushed-back silver hair. He wore, at that moment, an expression that could hardly be described as encouraging.

The expression was directed at a man standing opposite him on the other side of the table, a tall and powerfully built individual with a darkly saturnine expression and a black hairline moustache. He was dressed entirely in black. His badge of office, that of a US Marshal, glittered on his chest. He said: ‘But surely. Colonel Claremont, in circumstances such as those -’

‘Regulations are regulations.’ Claremont’s voice, though civil enough, was sharp and incisive, an accurate reflection of the man’s appearance. ‘Army business is army business. Civilian business is civilian business. I’m sorry, Marshal - ah -’

‘Pearce. Nathan Pearce.’

‘Of course. Of course. My apologies. I should have known.’ Claremont shook his head regretfully, but there was no trace of regret in his voice.‘Ours is an army troop train. No civilians aboard - except by special permission from Washington.’

Pearce said mildly: ‘But couldn’t we all be regarded as working for the Federal government?’

‘By army definitions, no.’

‘I see.’ Pearce clearly didn’t see at all. He looked slowly thoughtfully around the other five - one of them a young woman: none wore uniform. Pearce centred his gaze on a small, thin, frock-coated individual with a preacher’s collar, a high domed forehead chasing a rapidly receding hairline and an expression of permanently apprehensive anxiety. He shifted uneasily under the Marshal’s penetrating stare and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as if he were swallowing with considerable speed and frequency.

Claremont said drily: ‘The Reverend Theodore Peabody has got both special permission and qualifications.’ It was clear that Claremont’s regard for the preacher was somewhat less than unlimited. ‘His cousin is private secretary to the President. The Reverend Peabody is going to be a chaplain in Virginia City’

‘He’s going to be what?’ Pearce looked at a now positively cringing preacher, then unbelievingly at Claremont. ‘He’s mad! He’d last a damn sight longer among the Paiute Indians.’

Peabody’s tongue licked his lips as he resumed his swallowing performance. ‘But - but they say the Paiutes kill every white man on sight.’

‘Not on sight. They tend to take their time about it.’ Pearce moved his eyes again. Seated beyond the by now plainly scared pastor was a massively rotund figure in a loudly checked suit. He had the jowls to match his build, an expansive smile and a booming voice.

‘Dr Edward Molyneux, at your service, Marshal.’

‘I suppose you’re going to Virginia City too. Plenty work for you there, Doctor - filling out death certificates. Precious few from natural causes, I’m afraid.’

Molyneux said comfortably: ‘Not for me, those dens of iniquity. You see before you the newly appointed resident surgeon for Fort Humboldt. They haven’t been able to find a uniform to fit me yet.’

Pearce nodded, passed up several obvious comments and shifted his eyes again. A degree of irritation creeping into his voice, Claremont said: ‘I may as well save you the labour of individual interrogation. Not that you have the right to know. A matter of courtesy, only.’ Whether rebuke was either intended or accepted was impossible to say. Claremont gestured to the man seated on his right, a splendidly patriarchal figure with flowing white hair, moustache and beard who could have moved in and taken his place in the US Senate without having an eyelid batted in his general direction. Beard apart, the overall resemblance to Mark Twain was quite startling. Claremont said : ‘Governor Fairchild of Nevada you will know.’ Pearce inclined his head, then looked with a slight trace of interest at the young woman seated to Claremont’s left. Perhaps in her mid-twenties, she had a pale face, strangely dark smoky eyes and her tightly drawn hair - or what little could be seen of it under a grey and wide-brimmed felt hat - was as dark as night. She sat huddled under a matching grey coat: the proprietor of the Imperial Hotel did not regard his profit margin as being of such an order as to justify any extravagant drain on the fuel supply for his corded wood stove. Claremont said: ‘Miss Marica Fairchild, the Governor’s niece.’

‘Ah!’ Pearce looked from her to the Colonel. ‘The new quarter-master sergeant?’

Claremont said shortly: ‘She’s joining her father, the Commanding Officer at Fort Humboldt. Senior officers do have that privilege.’ He gestured to his left. ‘The Governor’s aide and liaison officer to the Army, Major Bernard O’Brien. Major O’Brien -’

He broke off and looked curiously at Pearce. Pearce, in turn, was staring at O’Brien, a burly, sun-tanned, cheerfully plump-faced man. O’Brien returned the look with growing interest, then, with the almost immediate coming of recognition, jumped to his feet. Suddenly, both men, smiling widely, moved quickly towards each other and shook hands - four-handed - like long-lost brothers, before pounding each other on the back. The ancient regulars of the Imperial Hotel gazed upon the scene with wonderment: none of those present could ever recall Marshal Nathan Pearce displaying even a slight degree of emotion before.

Delight was in O’Brien’s face. ‘Sergeant Pearce! Why did it never ring a bell? The Nathan Pearce! I’d never have recognized you. Why man, at Chattanooga your beard was -’

‘Was nearly as long as your own. Lieutenant.’

‘Major.’ O’Brien spoke in mock severity, then added sadly: ‘Promotion comes slowly, but it comes. Nathan Pearce, eh? The greatest army scout, the finest Indian fighter, the best gun -’

Pearce’s voice was dry. ‘Except for yourself, Major, except for yourself. Remember that day …’ Arms around each other’s shoulders and apparently quite oblivious of the rest of the company, the two men moved purposefully towards the bar, so profoundly an architectural monstrosity in design as to be deserving of a certain grudging admiration for its shoddy magnificence. It consisted of three enormous, and presumably enormously heavy, railway sleepers resting unsecured on a pair of trestles that seemed incapable of bearing a fraction of the weight they were being called upon to do. Originally, the classic simplicity of this design had been obscured by green linoleum on top and a floor-length drapery of velvet that had surrounded three sides. But time had had its inevitable way with both linoleum and velvet and the secrets of the designer were there for all to see. But despite the fragility of its construction, Pearce did not hesitate to lean his elbows on the bar and make appropriate signals to the glass-polisher. The two men fell into a low-voiced conversation.

The five who still remained at the table by the door remained silent for some time, then Marica Fairchild said in some puzzlement: ‘What did the Marshal mean by “except for yourself”? I mean, they were talking about scouting and fighting Indians and shooting and, well, all the Major can do is fill in forms, sing Irish songs, tell those awful stories of his and - and -’

‘And kill people more efficiently than any man I ever knew. Agreed, Governor?’

‘Agreed.’ The Governor laid his hand on his niece’s forearm. ‘O’Brien, my dear, was one of the most highly decorated Union Army officers in the War between the States. His - ah - expertise with either a rifle or hand gun has to be seen to be believed. Major O’Brien is my aide, agreed, but an aide of a very special kind. Up in those mountain states politics - and, after all, I am a politician - tend to assume a rather - what shall we say? - physical aspect. But as long as Major O’Brien is around the prospects of violence leave me unconcerned.’

‘People would harm you? You mean that you have enemies?’

‘Enemies!’ The Governor didn’t exactly snort but he came pretty close to it. ‘Show me a Governor west of the Mississippi who says he hasn’t and I’ll show you an out-and-out liar.’

Marica looked at him uncertainly then at the broad back of O’Brien at the bar, the disbelief in her face deepening. She made to speak, then changed her mind as O’Brien and Pearce, glasses in their hands, turned away from the bar and made their way back to their table. They were talking earnestly now, Pearce obviously in some exasperation: O’Brien was trying to be conciliatory.

Pearce said: ‘But damn it, O’Brien, you know what this man Sepp Calhoun is like. He’s killed, robbed both stage companies and the railroad, fomented range wars, sold guns and whisky to the Indians -’

‘We all know what he’s like.’ O’Brien was being very pacific. ‘If ever a man deserved to hang, it’s Calhoun. And hang he will.’

‘Not until a lawman gets his hands on him. And I’m the lawman, not you and your lot. And he’s up there now! In custody. In Fort Humboldt. All I want to do is to fetch him back. Up with your train, back with the next.’

‘You heard what the Colonel said, Nathan.’ Awkward and ill at ease, O’Brien turned to Claremont. ‘Do you think we could have this criminal sent back to Reese City under armed escort, sir?’

Claremont didn’t hesitate. ‘That can be arranged.’

Pearce looked at him and said coldly: ‘I thought you said this wasn’t army business.’

‘It isn’t. I’m doing you a favour. That way or no way, Marshal.’ He pulled out his pocket watch and glanced irritably at it. ‘Haven’t those damned horses been watered and provisioned yet? God, if you want anything done in today’s army you’ve got to see to it yourself.’ He pushed back his chair and rose. ‘Excuse me, Governor, but we’re due to leave in half an hour. Back in a moment.’

Colonel Claremont left. Pearce said: ‘Well, he doesn’t pay the piper, the US tax-payer does that, but I suppose he calls the tune all the same. And half an hour?’ He took O’Brien’s arm and began to lead him towards the bar. ‘Little enough time to make up for ten years.’

Governor Fairchild said: ‘One moment, please, gentlemen.’ He delved into a briefcase and held up a sealed package. ‘Forgotten something, haven’t we. Major?’

‘Those old comrades’ reunions.’ He took the package and handed it across to Pearce. ‘The Marshal at Ogden asked us to pass this on to you.’

Pearce nodded his thanks and the two men headed towards the bar. As they went, O’Brien looked casually around him: the smiling Irish eyes missed nothing. Nothing had changed in the past five minutes, no movement appeared to have been made: the ancients at the bar and tables might have been figures frozen for eternity into a waxen tableau. It was just at that moment that the outer door opened and five men entered and made for a distant table. They sat down and one of them produced a pack of cards. None of them spoke.

O’Brien said: ‘A lively bunch of citizens you have in Reese City.’

‘AH the lively citizens - and by “lively” I include quite a few who had to be helped on to the saddles of their horses - left some months ago when they made the big Bonanza strike in the Comstock Lode. All that’s left now are the old men - and God knows there are few enough of those around, growing old is not much of a habit in these parts - the drifters and the drunks, the shiftless and the ne’er-do-wells. Not that I’m complaining. Reese City needs a peace-keeping Marshal as much as the local cemetery does.’ He sighed, held up two fingers to the barman, produced a knife, sliced open the package that O’Brien had given him, extracted a bunch of very badly illustrated ‘Wanted’ notices and smoothed them out on the cracked linoleum of the bar-top.

O’Brien said: ‘You don’t seem very enthusiastic’

‘I’m not. Most of them arrive in Mexico six months before their pictures are circulated. Usually the wrong pictures of the wrong men, anyway.’

The Reese City railroad station building was in approximately the same state of decrepitude as the saloon bar of the Imperial Hotel. The scorching summers and sub-zero winters of the mountains had had their way with the untreated clapboard walls and, although not yet four years old, the building looked to be in imminent danger of falling to pieces. The gilt-painted sign REESE CITY was so blistered and weather-beaten as to be practically indecipherable.

Colonel Claremont pushed aside a sheet of canvas that had taken the place of a door long parted with its rusted-through hinges and called out for attention. There was no reply. Had the Colonel been better acquainted with the ways of life in Reese City he would have found little occasion for surprise in this, for apart from the time devoted to sleeping and eating and supervising the arrival and departure of trains - rare occasions, those, of which he was amply forewarned by friendly telegraph operators up and down the line - the station-master, the Union Pacific Railway’s sole employee in Reese City, was invariably to be found in the back room of the Imperial Hotel steadily consuming whisky as if it cost him nothing, which in fact it didn’t. There was an amicable but unspoken agreement between hotel proprietor and station-master: although all the hotel’s liquor supplies came by rail from Ogden, the hotel hadn’t received a freight bill for almost three years.

Claremont, anger in his face now, pushed aside the curtain and went out, his eyes running over the length of his troop train. Behind the high-stacked locomotive and tender loaded with cord-wood, were what appeared to be seven passenger coaches with a brake van at the end. That the fourth and fifth coaches were not, in fact, passenger coaches was obvious from the fact that two heavily sparred gangways reached up from the track-side to the centre of both. Standing at the foot of the first of the gangways was a burly, dark and splendidly moustached individual in shirt-sleeves, busy ticking items off a check-list he held in his hand. Claremont walked briskly towards him. He regarded Bellew as the best sergeant in the United States Cavalry while Bellew, in his turn, regarded Claremont as the finest CO he’d served under. Both men went to considerable lengths to conceal the opinions they held of each other.

Claremont nodded to Bellew, climbed up the first ramp and peered inside the coach. About four-fifths of its length had been fitted out with horse-stalls, the remaining space being given over to food and water. All the stalls were empty. Claremont descended the gangway.

‘Well, Bellew, where are the horses? Not to mention your troops. All to hell and gone, I suppose?’

Bellew, buttoning up his uniform jacket, was unruffled. ‘Fed and watered. Colonel. The men are taking them for a bit of a canter. After two days in the wagons they need the exercise, sir.’

‘So do I, but I haven’t the time for it. All right, all right, our four-legged friends are your responsibility, but get them aboard. We’re leaving in half an hour. Food and water enough for the horses till we reach the fort?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And for your men?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Fuel for all the stoves, including the horse-trucks? It’s going to be most damnably cold up in those mountains.’

‘Plenty, sir.’

‘For your sake, for all our sakes, there had better be. Where’s Captain Oakland? And Lieutenant Newell?’

‘They were here just before I took the men and the horses down to the livery stables. I saw them walking up to the front of the train as if they were heading for town. Aren’t they in town, sir?’

‘How the devil should I know? Would I be asking you if I did?’ Claremont’s irritation threshold was rapidly sinking towards a new low. ‘Have a detail find them. Tell them to report to me at the Imperial. My God! The Imperial!’

Bellew heaved a very perceptible but discreetly inaudible long-suffering sigh of relief as Claremont turned away and strode forward towards the locomotive. He swung himself up the iron steps into the driving cab. Chris Banlon, the engineer, was short and lean almost to the point of scrawniness; he had an almost incredibly wrinkled, nut-brown face which made a highly incongruous setting for a pair of periwinkle blue eyes. He was making some adjustments with the aid of a heavy monkey wrench. Becoming aware of Claremont’s presence, he made a last fractional adjustment to the bolt he was working on, returned the wrench to the tool-box and smiled at Claremont.

‘Afternoon, Colonel. This is a privilege.’

‘Trouble?’

‘Just making sure there is none, sir.’

‘Steam up?’

Banlon swung open the door of the fire-box. The blast of heat from the glowingly red-hot bed of cordwood made Claremont take a couple of involuntary steps backward. Banlon closed the door. ‘Ready to roll. Colonel.’

Claremont glanced to the rear where the tender was piled high with neatly stacked cordwood. ‘Fuel?’

‘Enough to last to the first depot. More than enough.’ Banlon glanced at the tender with pride. ‘Henry and I filled every last corner. A grand worker is Henry.’

‘Henry? The steward?’ The frown was in Claremont’s voice, not on his face. ‘And your mate - Jackson, isn’t it? The stoker?’

‘Me and my big mouth,’ Banlon said sadly. ‘I’ll never learn. Henry asked to help. Jackson - ah -helped us after.’

‘After what?’

‘After he’d come back from town with the beer.’ The extraordinarily bright blue eyes peered anxiously at Claremont. ‘I hope the Colonel doesn’t mind?’

Claremont was curt. ‘You’re railway employees, not soldiers. No concern of mine what you do -just so long as you don’t drink too much and drive us off one of the trestle bridges up in those damned mountains.’ He turned to go down the steps, then swung around again. ‘Seen Captain Oakland or Lieutenant Newell?’

‘Both of them, as a matter of fact. Stopped by here to chat to Henry and me, then went into town.’

‘Say where they were going?’

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Thanks, anyway.’ He descended, looked down the train to where Bellew was saddling up his horse and called: ‘Tell the search detail that they are in town.’

Bellew gave a sketchy salute.

O’Brien and Pearce turned away from the bar in the hotel saloon, Pearce stuffing the ‘Wanted’ notices back into their envelope. Both men halted abruptly and turned as a shout of anger came from a distant corner of the room.

At the card table, a very large man, dressed in moleskin trousers and jacket that looked as if they had been inherited from his grandfather, and sporting a magnificent dark red beard, had risen to his feet and was leaning across the table. His right hand held what appeared to be a small cannon, which is not an unfair description of a Peacemaker Colt, while his left pinioned to the surface of the table the left wrist of a man sitting across the table from him. The face of the seated man was shadowed and indistinct, being largely obscured by a high-turned sheepskin collar and a black stetson pulled low on his forehead.

The man with the red beard said: That was once too often, friend.’

Pearce brought up by the table and said mildly: ‘What was once too often, Garritty?’

Garritty advanced the Peacemaker till the muzzle was less than six inches from the seated man’s face. ‘Slippery fingers here. Marshal. Cheating bastard’s taken a hundred and twenty dollars from me in fifteen minutes.’

Pearce glanced briefly over his shoulder, more out of instinct than any curiosity, as the saloon bar door opened and Colonel Claremont entered. Claremont halted briefly, located the current centre of action within two seconds and made his unhesitating way towards it: to play the part of bit player or spectator was not in Claremont’s nature. Pearce returned his attention to Garritty.

‘Maybe he’s just a good player.’

‘Good?’ Garritty appeared to smile but, behind all that russet foliage, his intended expression was almost wholly a matter for conjecture. ‘He’s brilliant - too brilliant by half. I can tell. You won’t forget. Marshal, that I have been playing cards for fifty years now.’

Pearce nodded. ‘You’ve left me the poorer for meeting you across the poker table.’

Garritty twisted the left wrist of the seated man, who struggled hopelessly to resist, but Garritty had more than all the leverage he required. With the back of the left wrist pressed to the table, the cards in the hand were exposed: face-cards all of them, the top being the ace of hearts.

Pearce said: ‘Looks a pretty fair hand to me.’

‘Fair is not the word I’d use.’ Garritty nodded to the deck on the table. ‘About the middle, Marshal …’

Pearce picked up what was left of the pack of cards and ruffled his way through them. Suddenly he stopped and turned up his right hand: another ace of hearts lay there. Pearce laid it face down on the table, took the ace of hearts from the stranger’s hand and laid it, also face down, beside the other. Their backs were identical. Pearce said: ‘Two matching decks. Who provided those?’

‘I’ll give you one guess.’ The overtones in Garritty’s voice were, in all conscience, grim enough: the undertones were considerably worse.

‘An old trick,’ the seated man said. His voice was low but, considering the highly compromising situation in which he found himself, remarkably steady. ‘Somebody put it there. Somebody who knew I had the ace.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Deakin. John Deakin.’

‘Stand up, Deakin.’ The man did so. Pearce moved leisurely round the table until he was face to face with Deakin. Their eyes were on a level. Pearce said: ‘Gun?’

‘No gun.’

‘You surprise me. I should have thought a gun would have been essential for a man like you -for self-defence, if nothing else.’

‘I’m not a man of violence.’

‘I’ve got the feeling you’re going to experience some whether you like it or not.’ With his right hand Pearce lifted the left-hand side of Deakin’s sheepskin coat while with his free hand he delved into the depth of Deakin’s inside lining pocket. After a few seconds’ preliminary exploration he withdrew his left hand and fanned out an interesting variety of aces and face-cards.

‘My, my,’ O’Brien murmured. ‘What’s known as playing it close to the chest.’

Pearce pushed the money lying in front of Deakin across to Garritty, who made no attempt to pick it up. Garritty said harshly: ‘My money is not enough.’

‘I know it isn’t.’ Pearce was being patient. ‘You should have gathered as much from what I said. You know my position, Garritty. Cheating at cards is hardly a Federal offence, so I can’t interfere. But if I see violence taking place before my eyes - well, as the local peace-keeper, I’m bound to interfere. Give me your gun.’

‘My pleasure.’ The ring of ominous satisfaction in Garritty’s voice was there for all to hear. He handed his mammoth pistol across to Pearce, glared at Deakin and jerked his thumb in the direction of the front door. Deakin remained motionless. Garritty rounded the table and repeated the gesture. Deakin made an almost imperceptible motion of the head, but one unmistakably negative. Garritty struck him, backhanded, across the face. There was no reaction. Garritty said: ‘Outside!’

I told you,’ Deakin said. ‘I’m not a man of violence.’

Garritty swung viciously and without warning at him. Deakin staggered backwards, caught a chair behind his knees and fell heavily to the floor. Hatless now, he remained as he had fallen, quite conscious and propped on one elbow, but making no attempt to move. Blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. In what must have been an unprecedented effort, every single member of the regular clientele had risen to his feet: together, they pressed forward to get a closer view of the proceedings. The expressions on their faces registered a slow disbelief ultimately giving way to something close to utter contempt. The bright red thread of violence was an integral and unquestionable element of the warp and woof of the frontier way of life: unrequited violence, the meek acceptance of insult or injury without any attempt at physical retaliation, was the ultimate degradation, that of manhood destroyed.

Garritty stared down at the unmoving Deakin in frustrated incredulity, in a steadily increasing anger which was rapidly stripping him of the last vestiges of self-control. Pearce, who had moved forward to forestall Garritty’s next expression of a clearly intended mayhem, was looking oddly puzzled: then the puzzlement was replaced by what seemed an instant realization. Mechanically, almost, as Garritty took a step forward and swung back his right foot with a clearly near-homicidal intent, Pearce also took a step forward and buried a none too gentle right elbow in Garritty’s diaphragm. Garritty, almost retching, gasped in pain and doubled over, both hands clutching his midriff: he was having temporary difficulty in breathing.

Pearce said: ‘I warned you, Garritty. No violence in front of a US Marshal. Any more of this and you’ll be my guest for the night. Not that that’s important now. I’m afraid the matter is out of your hands now.’

Garritty tried to straighten himself, an exercise that clearly provided him with no pleasure at all. His voice, when he finally spoke, was like that of a bull-frog with laryngitis.

‘What the hell do you mean - it’s out of my hands?’

‘It’s Federal business now.’

Pearce slipped the ‘Wanted’ notices from their envelope, leafed rapidly through them, selected a certain notice, returned the remainder to the envelope, glanced briefly at the notice in his hand,glanced just as briefly at Deakin, then turned and beckoned to Colonel Claremont who, without so much as a minuscule twitch of the eyebrows, walked forward to join Pearce and O’Brien. Wordlessly, Pearce showed Claremont the paper in his hand. The picture of the wanted man, little better than a daguerreotype print, was a greyish sepia in colour, blurred and cloudy and indistinct in outline: but it was unmistakably a true likeness of the man who called himself John Deakin.

Pearce said: ‘Well, Colonel, I guess this buys me my train ticket after all.’

Claremont looked at him and said nothing. His expression didn’t say very much either, just that of a man politely waiting.

Pearce read from the notice: “Wanted: for gambling debts, theft, arson and murder.”’

‘A nice sense of priorities,’ O’Brien murmured.

“John Houston alias John Murray alias John Deakin alias” - well, never mind, alias a lot of things. “Formerly lecturer in medicine at the University of Nevada.”’

‘University?’ Claremont’s tone reflected the slight astonishment in his face. ‘In those Godforsaken mountains?’

‘Can’t stop progress, Colonel. Opened in Elko. This year.’ He read on: “Dismissed for gambling debts and illegal gambling. Embezzlement of university funds subsequently discovered, attributed to wanted man. Traced to Lake’s Crossing and trapped in hardware store. To cover escape,used kerosene to set fire to store. Ensuing blaze ran out of control and central part of Lake’s Crossing destroyed with the loss of seven lives.”’

Pearce’s statement gave rise to a splendid series of expressions among onlookers and listeners, ranging from incredulity to horror, from anger to revulsion. Only Pearce and O’Brien and, curiously enough, Deakin himself, registered no emotion whatsoever.

Pearce continued: ‘“Traced to railroad repair shops at Sharps. Blew up wagonload of explosives destroying three sheds and all rolling stock. Present whereabouts unknown.”’

Garritty’s voice was still a croak. ‘He - this is the man who burnt down Lake’s Crossing and blew up Sharps?’

‘If we are to believe this notice, and I do believe it, this is indeed the man. We all know about the long arm of coincidence but this would be stretching things a bit too far. Kind of puts your paltry hundred and twenty dollars into its right perspective, doesn’t it, Garritty? By the way, I’d pocket that money right now if I were you - nobody’s going to be seeing Deakin for a long, long time to come.’ He folded the notice and looked at Claremont. ‘Well?’

They won’t need a jury. But it’s still not Army business.’

Pearce unfolded the notice, handed it to Claremont. I didn’t read it all out, the notice was too long.’ He pointed to a paragraph. I missed this bit, for instance.’

Claremont read aloud : “‘The explosives wagon in the Sharps episode was en route to the United States Army Ordnance Depot at Sacramento, California.” He folded the paper, handed it back and nodded. ‘This makes it Army business.’

TWO

Colonel Claremont, whose explosive temper normally lay very close to the surface indeed, was clearly making a Herculean effort to keep it under control. It was just as clearly a losing battle. A meticulous and exceptionally thorough individual, one who cleaved to prescribed detail and routine, one who had a powerful aversion to the even tenor of his ways being interrupted, far less disrupted, and one who was totally incapable of suffering either fools or incompetence gladly, Claremont had not yet devised, and probably never would devise, a safety-valve for his only failing as an officer and a man. Not for him the gradual release of or sublimation for the rapid and rapidly increasing frustration-based anger that simmered just below boiling point and did all sorts of bad things to his blood pressure. In geological terms, he neither vented volcanic gases nor released surplus superheated energy in the form of spouts and geysers: like Krakatoa, he just blew his top, and the results, at least for those in his immediate vicinity, were, more often than not, only a slight degree less devastating.

The Colonel had an audience of eight. A rather apprehensive Governor, Marica, chaplain and doctor stood just outside the main entrance to the Imperial: some little way along the boardwalk O’Brien, Pearce and Deakin were also watching the Colonel in full cry, although it was noticeable that Pearce had an even closer eye for Deakin than he did for the Colonel. The eighth member was the unfortunate Sergeant Bellew. He was rigidly at attention, or as rigid as one can be when seated on a highly restive horse, with his gaze studiously fixed on a point about a couple of light years beyond the Colonel’s left shoulder. The afternoon had turned cold but Bellew was sweating profusely.

‘Everywhere?’ Claremont’s disbelief was total and he made no attempt to hide it. ‘You’ve searched everywhere?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Officers of the United States Cavalry can hardly be a common sight hereabouts. Someone’s bound to have seen them.’

‘No one we talked to, sir. And we talked to everyone we saw.’

‘Impossible, man, impossible!’

‘Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.’ Bellew abandoned his rapt contemplation of infinity, focused his eyes on the Colonel’s face and said, almost in quiet desperation: ‘We can’t find them, sir.’

The colour of the Colonel’s complexion deepened to a dangerous hue. It required no great feat of the imagination to see that the lava of his fury was about to erupt. Pearce took a couple of hasty steps forward and said: ‘Maybe I can. Colonel. I can pick twenty, thirty men who know every hole and corner in this town - and heaven knows there are not a great number of those. Twenty minutes and we’ll find them, if they’re here to be found.’

‘What the devil do you mean - if?’

‘What I say.’ It was obvious that Pearce was in no placatory mood. ‘I’m offering to be of assistance - and I don’t have to offer. I don’t expect a “thank you”, I don’t even expect an acceptance. A little courtesy would help, though. Yes or no.’

Claremont hesitated, his blood pressure fractionally easing. He’d been brought up short by Pearce’s curt tone and had to remind himself, painfully and almost forcibly, that he was dealing with a civilian, one of that unfortunate majority over whom he had neither control nor authority. Claremont kept his contact with civilians to a basic minimum, with the result that he had almost forgotten how to talk to them. But the root cause of his temporary indecision was the galling and humiliating prospect that those unwashed and undisciplined derelicts of Reese City might succeed where his own beloved troops had failed. When he did reply it cost him a very considerable effort to speak as he did.

‘Very well. Marshal. Please do that. And thank you. Departure time, then, twenty minutes. We’ll wait down at the depot.’

‘I’ll be there. A favour in return. Colonel. Could you detail two or three of your men to escort the prisoner to the train?’

‘An escort?’ Claremont was openly contemptuous. ‘Hardly, I would have thought, a man of violence, Marshal.’

Pearce said mildly: ‘It depends upon what you mean by violence, Colonel. Where the violence involves himself - well, we’ve seen he’s no lover of bar-room brawls. But on his past record he’s quite capable of burning down the Imperial or blowing up your precious troop train the moment my back is turned.’

Leaving Claremont with this cheerful thought, Pearce hurried into the Imperial. Claremont said to Bellew: ‘Call off your men. Take the prisoner down to the train. Have his hands tied behind his back and put him on an eighteen-inch hobble. Our friend here seems to have the habit of disappearing into thin air.’

‘Who do you think you are? God almighty?’ There was a trace, slight though the combination was, of self-righteous anger and quavering defiance in Deakin’s voice. ‘You can’t do this to me. You’re not a lawman. You’re only a soldier.’

‘Only a soldier. Why, you -’ Claremont held himself in check then said with some satisfaction: ‘A twelve-inch hobble. Sergeant Bellew.’

‘That will be a pleasure, sir.’ It was obviously an even greater pleasure for Sergeant Bellew to have his and his Colonel’s displeasure directed against a common antagonist, however innocuous that antagonist might seem, rather than have the Colonel’s wrath directed against him personally. Bellew withdrew a whistle from his tunic, took a deep breath and blew three ear-piercing blasts in rapid succession. Claremont winced, made a gesture that the others should follow him and led the way down towards the depot. After about a hundred yards, Claremont, O’Brien by his side, stopped and looked back. There was issuing forth from the doors of the Imperial what must have been an unprecedented exodus in the annals of Reese City. The motley crew could hardly have been classified under the heading of the halt and the lame and the blind, but they came pretty close to qualifying for it.

Due to the fact that the dilution of their whisky with water would have brought immediate and permanent ostracism to any of the Imperial’s devoted clientele, at least half of those who emerged had the rolling, weaving gait of a windjammer sailor who had spent too long at sea. Two of them limped badly and one, no soberer than the rest, was making remarkably good time on a pair of crutches; he at least had the support that the others lacked. Pearce joined them and issued what appeared to be a series of rapid instructions. O’Brien watched the grey-bearded band disperse in a variety of directions and slowly shook his head from side to side.

He said: ‘If they were on a treasure hunt for a buried bottle of bourbon, I’d have my money on them any day. As it is -’

‘I know, I know,’ Claremont turned dispiritedly and resumed the trek to the depot. Smoke and steam were issuing profusely and Banlon, clearly, had a full head of steam up. The engineer looked out.

‘Any signs, sir?’

‘I’m afraid not, Banlon.’

Banlon hesitated. ‘Still want me to keep a full head of steam up, Colonel?’

‘And why not?’

‘You mean - we’re going to pull out with or without the Captain and the Lieutenant?’

‘That’s precisely what I mean. Fifteen minutes, Banlon. Just fifteen minutes.’

‘But Captain Oakland and Lieutenant Newell -’

‘They’ll just have to catch the next train, won’t they?’

‘But, sir, that might be days -’

‘At the moment, I’m hardly in the mood to worry over the welfare of the Captain and the Lieutenant.’ He turned to the others and gestured towards the steps leading up to the front of the first coach. ‘It’s cold and it’s going to be a damned sight colder. Governor, with your permission, I’d like Major O’Brien stay with me a little. Just until this fellow Deakin is brought along. Nothing against my own men, mind you, none better, but I don’t trust them to cope with a slippery customer like Deakin. But I think the Major can cope admirably - and without exerting himself unduly. Just till Pearce gets back.’

O’Brien smiled and said nothing. Governor Fairchild nodded his agreement, then hastily mounted the steps. Even in the past fifteen minutes the late afternoon had become noticeably colder.

Claremont nodded briefly to O’Brien, then slowly began to walk the length of the train, from time to time slapping his very English swagger-stick - his sole concession to individuality or eccentricity, it all depended upon how one viewed it - against his leather riding boots. Colonel Claremont knew next to nothing about trains but he had been born with an inspectorial eye and rarely passed up the opportunity of exercising it. Further, he was the commandant of the train and Claremont believed in keeping a close and jealous eye upon his own, however temporarily that property might remain in his keeping.

The first coach consisted of the officers’ day compartment - that into which the Governor had so recently and thankfully disappeared - the night compartments for the Governor and his niece and, at the rear, the officers’ dining saloon. The second coach consisted of the galley, sleeping quarters for Henry and Carlos who were steward and cook respectively, and the officers’ night compartment. The third coach was the supply wagon, the fourth and fifth the horse wagons. The first quarter of the sixth wagon was given over to the troops’ galley, while the remainder of it and all of the seventh coach was given over to the troops’ accommodation. None the wiser for his tour of inspection, Claremont reached the brake van, then, hearing the sound of hooves, looked towards the front of the train. Bellew had rounded up his lost sheep: as far as Claremont could ascertain he had the entire cavalry detachment with him.

Sergeant Bellew himself was in the lead. He held loosely in his left hand a rope, the other end of which was looped round Deakin’s neck. Deakin himself, because of the twelve-inch hobble, was forced to walk in a ludicrously fast, stiff-legged gait, more like a marionette than a human being. It was a shameful and humiliating position for any grown man to find himself in but it left Claremont totally unmoved. He paused just long enough to see O’Brien move out to intercept Bellew, then swung himself up the brake van’s steps, pushed open the door and passed inside.

Compared to the chill outside, the atmosphere inside the brake van was close on stifling, almost oppressively hot. The reason for this was not far to seek: the cordwood-burning stove in one corner of the van had been stoked with such skill and devotion that its circular, removable cast-iron top glowed a far from dull red. To one side of the stove was a bin well stacked with cordwood: beyond that again was a food cupboard - if the cordwood bin was anything to go by, Claremont thought, the cupboard would be far from empty - and beyond that again was the massive brake wheel. To the other side of the stove was a massive and massively over-stuffed armchair then, finally, a mattress piled high with faded army issue blankets and what looked like a couple of bearskins.

Almost buried in the depths of the armchair and reading a book through a pair of steel-rimmed and steel-legged glasses was a man who could only, in all fairness to the ancient cliche, be described as a grizzled veteran. He had a four-day growth of white beard on his face; his hair, if hair he had, was invisible beneath what looked like a Dutch bargee’s peaked hat, pulled low over the ears, no doubt to keep out the cold. He was cocooned in considerable but indeterminate layers of clothing, the whole topped off with an Eskimo-type anorak made from equally indeterminate furs. To defeat the ill intent of even the most cunning of draughts, a heavy Navajo blanket stretched from his waist to his ankles.

As Claremont entered, the brakeman stirred, courteously removed his glasses and peered at Claremont with pale blue watery eyes. He blinked in surprise, then said: ‘This is indeed an honour, Colonel Claremont.’ Although over sixty years had passed since the brakeman had made his one and only crossing of the Atlantic, his Irish brogue was still so pronounced that he could have left his native Connemara only the previous day. He struggled to rise - no easy task from the position into which he had wedged himself - but Claremont waved him to sit down. The brake-man complied willingly and cast a meaningful glance towards the opened door.

Claremont made haste to close it and said: ‘Devlin, isn’t it?’

‘Seamus Devlin at your service, sir.’ ‘Bit of a lonely life you lead here, isn’t it?’ ‘It all depends upon what you mean by lonely, sir. Sure, I’m alone but I’m never lonely.’ He closed the book he had been reading and clasped it tight in both hands. ‘If you want a lonely job, Colonel, it’s up there in the driver’s cab. Sure, you’ve got your fireman, but you can’t talk to him, not with all that racket up front there. And when it’s raining or snowing or sleeting you’ve got to keep looking out to see where you’re going, so that you’re either frying or freezing. I should know, I spent forty-five years on the footplate but I got a bit past it a few years ago.’ He looked around him with some pride. ‘Reckon I’ve got the best job in the Union Pacific here. My own stove, my own food, my own bed, my own armchair -’

‘I was going to ask you about that,’ Claremont said curiously. ‘Hardly Union Pacific standard issue, I should have thought.’

‘I must have picked it up somewhere,’ Devlin said vaguely.

‘Many more years to retirement?’

Devlin smiled, almost conspiratorially. ‘The Colonel is very - what do you say? - diplomatic. Yes, that’s right, diplomatic. Well, sir, you’re right, I’m afraid I’m a mite old for the job but I kind of lost my birth certificate years ago and that made things a bit difficult for the Union Pacific. This is my last trip, Colonel. When I get back east, it’s my grand-daughter’s home and the old fireside for me.’

‘May heaven rain cordwood upon you,’ Claremont murmured.

‘Eh? I mean, I beg the Colonel’s pardon.’

‘Nothing. Tell me, Devlin, how do you pass the time here?’

‘Well, I cook and eat and sleep and -’

‘Yes, now. How about sleep? If you’re asleep and a bad corner or a steep descent comes up what -’

‘No trouble, sir. Chris - that’s Banlon the engineer - and I have what they call these days communication. Just a wire inside a tube, but it works. Chris gives half a dozen pulls, the bell rings in here and I give one pull back to show that I’m in the land of the living, like. Then he gives one, two, three or four pulls, all depends how much pressure he wants me to put on the wheel. Never failed yet, sir.’

‘But you can’t spend all your time just eating and sleeping?’

‘I read, sir. I read a lot. Hours every day.’

Claremont looked around. ‘You’ve got your library pretty well hidden.’

‘I haven’t got a library. Colonel. Just this one book. It’s all I ever read.’ He turned the book he held in his hand and showed it to Claremont: it was an ancient and sadly battered family Bible.

‘I see.’ Colonel Claremont, a strictly non-churchgoer whose closest brushes with religion came in his not infrequent conducting of burial services, felt and looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Well, Devlin, let’s hope for a safe trip to Fort Humboldt and a safe last passage back east for you.’

‘Thank you, sir. Much obliged, I’m sure.’ Devlin had resumed his steel spectacles and had the Bible opened even before the Colonel had the brake van door closed behind him.

Claremont walked briskly towards the front of the train. Bellew and half a dozen of his men were busy dismantling the horse wagon ramps. Claremont said: ‘Livestock and men. All accounted for?’

‘Indeed, sir.’

‘Five minutes?’

‘Easily, Colonel.’

Claremont nodded and continued on his way. Pearce appeared round the corner of the depot building and hurried towards him. Pearce said: ‘I know you’ll never do it. Colonel, but you really do owe Bellew and his men an apology.’

‘No signs of them? None at all?’

‘Wherever they are, they’re not in Reese City. My life on it.’

Claremont’s first reaction, oddly enough, had been one almost of relief - relief that Pearce and his derelict posse had not succeeded where his own men had failed. But now the full implication of their apparent desertion or unforgivably delayed absence returned with renewed force and he said without unclenching his teeth: ‘I’ll have them court-martialled and dismissed the service for this.’

Pearce looked at him speculatively and said: ‘I never met them, of course. Like that, were they?’

‘No, dammit, they weren’t.’ Claremont slashed viciously at the side of his riding boot and barely repressed his wince of pain. ‘Oakland and Newell were two of the finest officers I’ve ever had serve under me. But no exceptions, no exceptions. Fine officers, all the same, fine officers - Come on, Marshal. Time we were gone.’

Pearce boarded the train. Claremont looked back to check that the horse wagon doors were closed, then turned and raised his hand. Banlon gave an acknowledging wave from his cab, moved inside and opened the steam regulator. The driving wheels slipped once, twice, three times; then they began to bite.

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