Breakheart Pass

vertical sitting position. 'I've been watching them drinking all evening and it hasn't been pleasant. I don't like being spoon-fed. Could you untie the ropes on my wrists?'

'Could I – do I look mad? If once you got your hands free, you – you–'

'Would wrap them round your lovely neck?' He peered more closely at her neck while she regarded him in stony silence. 'It is rather lovely. However, that's hardly the point. At this moment, I doubt whether I could wrap my two hands round a whisky glass. Have you seen my hands?'

He twisted round and let her see them. They were blue and almost grotesquely swollen, with the thongs cutting deeply into the badly puffed flesh of the wrists. Deakin said: 'Whatever else our Marshal lacks, you must admit he brings a certain enthusiasm to the task on hand.'

Marica's face was tight-lipped, both anger and compassion in her eyes. She said: 'Do you promise–'

'My turn now. Do I look mad. Escape? With all those nasty Paiutes out there. I'd rather take my chance on the Governor's rot-gut whisky.'

Five minutes elapsed before Deakin could take that chance. It took Marica only a minute to untie him, but it took Deakin another four, after hopping to the nearest armchair, to restore a measure of circulation to his numbed hands. The pain must have been excruciating but his face remained immobile. Marica, watching him intently, said: T think John Deakin is a great deal tougher than everybody seems to give him credit for.'

'It ill becomes a grown man to bellow in front of a woman.' He flexed his fingers. 'I think you mentioned something about a drink, Miss Fairchild.'

She brought him a glass of whisky. Deakin drained half of it in one gulp, sighed in satisfaction, replaced the glass on the table by his side, stooped and started to free the ropes binding his ankles. Marica jumped to her feet, her fists clenched, her eyes mad; she remained like that for the briefest of moments, then ran from the compartment. She was back in seconds while Deakin was still untying his ankles. He looked in disfavour at the small but purposeful-looking pearl-handled pistol in her hand. He said: 'What are you carrying that around for?'

'Uncle said that if the Indians ever got me ' She broke off, her face furious. 'Damn you! Damn you! You promised me–'

'When a person's a murderer, arsonist, thief, cheat and coward, you can hardly be surprised when he turns out to be a liar as well. In fact, you'd be a damned idiot to expect anything else.' He removed the thongs from his ankles, pushed himself rather shakily to his feet, advanced two steps and casually removed the gun from her hand as if she had no intention of firing it, which she clearly hadn't. He pushed her gently down into an armchair, placed the little pistol on her lap, hobbled back to his chair and sat down, wincing briefly. 'Rest easy, lady. As it so happens, I'm not going anywhere. A little circulation trouble, that's all. Would you like to see my ankles?'

'No!' She was obviously seething with anger at her own lack of resolution.

'To tell you the truth, neither would I. Is your mother still alive?'

'Is my–' The unexpected question had caught her completely off-balance. 'What on earth has that to do with you?'

'Making conversation. You know how difficult it is when two strangers meet for the first time.' He rose again and paced gingerly up and down, glass in hand. 'Well, is she?'

Marica was curt. 'Yes.'

'But not well?'

'How would you know that? Besides, what business is it of yours?'

'None. Just that I'm possessed of an incorrigible degree of curiosity.'

'Faney words.' It was questionable whether Marica was capable of sneering but she came very close to it. 'Very fancy, Mr Deakin.'

'I used to be a university lecturer. Very important to impress upon your students that you're smarter than they are. I used big words. So. Your mother is not well. If she were it would be much more natural for a fort commandant to be joined by his wife rather than his daughter. And I would have thought that your place would have been by your sick mother. And it strikes me as very odd indeed that you should be permitted to come out here when there's cholera in the Fort and the Indians are so restive. Don't those things strike you as odd, Miss Fairchild? Must have been a very pressing and urgent invitation from your father, though for God knows what reasons. The invitation came by letter?'

'I don't have to answer your questions.' But it was apparent that, nonetheless, the questions intrigued her.

'In addition to all my other faults the Marshal listed, I've more than my fair share of persistent impertinence. By letter? Of course it wasn't. It was by telegraph. All urgent messages are sent by telegraph.' Abruptly, he switched his questioning. 'Your uncle. Colonel Claremont, Major O'Brien – you know them all very well, don't you?'

'Well, really!' Marica had renewed her lipcompressing expression. 'I think it's quite intolerable–'

'Thank you, thank you.' Deakin drained his glass, sat and began to retie his ankles. 'That was all I wanted to know.' He stood up, handed her another piece of rope, then turned with his hands clasped behind his back. 'If you would be so kind – but not quite so tight this time.'

Marica said slowly: 'Why all this concern, this interest in me? I should have thought that you yourself had enough worries and troubles–'

'I have, my dear girl, I have. I'm just trying to take my mind off them.' He screwed his eyes as the rope tightened on his inflamed wrists. He said protestingly:

'Easy, now, easy.'

She made no reply, tightened the last knot, helped ease Deakin to first a sitting, then a lying position, then left, still without a word. Back in her own cubicle, she closed the door softly behind her, then sat on her bed for a long time indeed, her eyes unfocused but her face very thoughtful and still.

In the redly and brightly illuminated driving cab the face of Banlon, the engineer, was equally thoughtful as he divided his time and attention between the controls and peering out the side window to examine the track ahead and the skies above. The black mass of cloud, moving rapidly to the east, now obscured more than half the sky; in a very short time indeed the darkness would be as close to total as it could ever be in uplands where mountains and pines – and increasingly the ground itself – were overlaid with a blanket of white.

Jackson, the fireman, was as close a carbon copy to Banlon as it was possible to be – abnormally lean, dark- complexioned and with two enormous crows' feet that traversed his parchment face from the ears almost to the tip of his nose. Despite the cold, Jackson was sweating profusely: on steep gradients such as this, the continuous demand for a full head of steam gobbled up fuel almost as quickly as it could be fed into the cavernous maw of the fire-box, casting Jackson in the role of little less than a slave to a very demanding master. He heaved a last section of cordwood on to the glowing bed of coals, mopped his forehead with a filthy towel and swung the door of the fire-box shut. The immediate effect was to reduce the footplate to a state of semi-darkness.

Banlon abandoned the cab window and moved towards the controls. Suddenly there came a loud, metallic and very ominous rattle. Banlon addressed a series of unprintable epithets towards the source of the sound.

Jackson's voice was sharp. 'What's wrong?'

Banlon didn't answer at once. He reached swiftly towards the brake. There was a moment's silence, followed by a screeching, banging clamour as the train, with a concertina collisioning of bumpers, began to slow towards a stop. Throughout the train all the minority who were awake – with the exception of the bound Deakin – and most of the majority who had just been violently woken grabbed for the nearest support as the train ground to its jolting, shuddering, emergency stop. Not a few of the heavier sleepers were dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

'That damned steam regulator again!' Banlon said. 'I think the retaining nut has come off. Give Devlin the bell – brakes hard on.' He unhooked a feeble oil-lamp and peered at the offending regulator. 'And open the fire-box door – I've seen better glow-worms than this goddamned lamp.'

Jackson did what he was asked, then leaned out and peered back down the track. 'Quite a few folk coming this way,' he announced. 'They don't seem all that happy to me.'

'What do you expect?' Banlon said sourly. 'A deputation coming to thank us for saving their lives?' He peered out on his own side. 'There's another lot of satisfied customers coming up this way, too.'

But there was one traveller who was not running forward. A vague and palish blur in the darkness, he jumped