Breakheart Pass Read online

  Alistair MacLean

  Alistair MacLean, the son of a Scots minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941, at the age of eighteen, he joined the Royal Navy. After the war he read English at Glasgow University and became a school-master. The two and a half years he spent aboard a wartime cruiser were to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his remarkably successful first novel, published in 1955. He is now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th century, the author of twenty-nine worldwide bestsellers, many of which have been filmed, including The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Fear is the Key and Ice Station Zebra. In 1983, he was awarded a D.Litt. from Glasgow University. Alistair MacLean died in 1987.

  By Alistair MacLean

  HMS Ulysses

  The Guns of Navarone

  South by Java Head

  The Last Frontier

  Night Without End

  Fear is the Key

  The Dark Crusader

  The Golden Rendezvous

  The Satan Bug

  Ice Station Zebra

  When Eight Bells Toll

  Where Eagles Dare

  Force 10 from Navarone

  Puppet on a Chain

  Caravan to Vaccares

  Bear Island

  The Way to Dusty Death

  Breakheart Pass

  Circus

  The Golden Gate

  Seawitch

  Goodbye California

  Athabasca

  River of Death

  Partisans

  Floodgate

  San Andreas

  The Lonely Sea (stories)

  Santorini

  ALISTAIR MACLEAN

  Breakheart Pass

  STERLING and the distinctive Sterling logo are registered trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

  First Sterling edition 2012

  Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1976

  First published in Great Britain by

  Collins 1974 Copyright © Devoran Trustees Ltd 1974

  Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4027-9350-9

  For information about custom editions, special sales, and premium and corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales at 800-805-5489 or [email protected].

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  www.sterlingpublishing.com

  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.

  To Mary Marcelle

  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

  CARTER US Army Telegraphists

  SIMPSON

  BENSON

  CARMODY Three minor villains

  HARRIS

  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.

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  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 droopmoustached 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 handtowel 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 e
xpression 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, frockcoated individual with a preacher's collar, a high domed forehead chasing a rapidly receding hair-line 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 widebrimmed 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 lime, 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.