Текст книги "The Chase"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

45

THERE WAS HOPE IN THE HEARTS OF THE MEN WHO sweated and toiled to drive Adeline over the rails. They had all risen up and reached beyond themselves to do the impossible. Men and women who worked the farms and ranches alongside the track stopped their labor and stared in surprise at the speeding lone locomotive that shrieked its whistle in the distance and thundered past beyond their sight in less than a full minute except for the lingering trail of smoke.

With Lofgren in the driver’s seat, he pressed Adeline harder and harder until they swept over the border from Utah to Idaho at a speed of nearly one hundred miles an hour. Pocatello, Blackfoot, and Idaho Falls came and went. Stationmasters could only stand in shock and confusion, not able to comprehend a locomotive and tender that came out of nowhere with no advance warning and plunged past their depots at unheard-of speed.

Before they raced out of Ogden, Bell had procured a pile of blankets so the crews could catnap between shifts of driving the locomotive and feeding its boiler. At first, they found it impossible to sleep for short periods because of the clamor of the drive train, the hiss of steam, and the clatter of the steel wheels over the rails. But as exhaustion set in, they found it easier and easier to drift off until their turn came at the scoop and throttle again.

Except for quick stops for coal and water, Adeline never slowed down. At one stop, in Spencer, Idaho, Bell learned that they were only fifty minutes behind Cromwell’s train. Knowing they were rapidly closing the distance inspired them to renew their efforts and work even harder.

The mystery in Bell’s mind was the report given him by the Spencer stationmaster. It seemed that the Southern Pacific main track stopped at Missoula, with only a spur that went another eighty miles to the small port of Woods Bay, Montana, on Flathead Lake.

“How do you read it?” Lofgren asked Bell after his place at the throttle was taken by Jongewaard.

“Cromwell must have found another crew after driving the engineer and fireman from Winnemucca half to death,” said Bell.

Lofgren nodded. “Without telegraph messages coming through and informing us otherwise, I have to believe he dumped them in the middle of nowhere, too, and forced a relay crew to come aboard for the final dash across the border.”

“Then he’ll have to do it by driving over a road in an automobile.”

Lofgren looked at him. “Why do you say that?”

Bell shrugged. “The stationmaster at Spencer told me Southern Pacific’s tracks end at Woods Bay on the east shore of Flathead Lake. I assume the only way Cromwell can continue north into Canada is by road.”

“I disagree. My guess is, he’s going to take his train onto the car ferry that runs across the lake.”

Bell stared at Lofgren questioningly. “Car ferry?”

Lofgren nodded. “Logs from timber operations in Canada are hauled on flatcars across the border to a small port on the west side of the lake called Rollins. From there, they are rolled onto a ferry that carries them across the lake. When they reach Woods Bay, they are coupled to trains that transport them to lumberyards around the Southwest.”

“Why doesn’t Southern Pacific simply run their tracks north to Canada?”

“The Great Northern Railroad received land rights from the government to cross the upper United States. They laid tracks that run from a landing on the west shore of Flathead Lake north to the border, where their locomotives are coupled to flatcars carrying logs hauled by the Canadian Pacific Railroad from the logging camps. Officials from both Great Northern and Southern Pacific refused to work together and never laid tracks that merged around the ends of the lake.”

“How do you know all this?”

“My uncle lives in Kalispell, above the lake. He’s retired now, but he was an engineer for the Great Northern Railroad. He drove an engine between Spokane and Helena.”

The interest in Bell’s voice gave way to trepidation. “So what you’re telling me is that Cromwell can ferry his train across the lake to the Northern Pacific tracks and go north into Canada without stepping off his freight car.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“If he gets across on the car ferry before we can stop him…” His voice trailed off.

Lofgren saw the apprehension in Bell’s eyes. “Don’t worry, Isaac,” he said confidently. “Cromwell can’t be more than ten miles up the track ahead of us. We’ll catch him.”

For a long moment, Bell said nothing. Then he slowly reached in a breast pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. Slowly, he unfolded it and handed it to Lofgren.

The engineer studied and then spoke without looking up. “It looks like a list of names.”

“It is.”

“Names of who?”

Bell dropped his voice until it was barely audible above the clangor of the charging locomotive. “The men, women, and children Cromwell murdered. I’ve been carrying it since I was put in charge of chasing him down.”

Lofgren’s eyes lifted and gazed through the front window of the track ahead. “The others should see this.”

Bell nodded. “I think now is an appropriate time.”

THREE HOURS LATER, with Lofgren back on the throttle, Adeline began to slow as she came into Missoula. He brought the locomotive to a halt fifty feet before a switch stand. Shea jumped from the cab, ran up the track, and switched the rails to those of the spur leading to Flathead Lake. He ignored the switchman, who came running out of a shack.

“Here, what are you doing?” demanded the switchman, who was bundled up against a cold wind.

“No time to explain,” said Shea as he waved to Lofgren, signaling that it was safe to roll onto the spur from the main track. He looked at the switchman as Adeline slowly rolled past and said, “Did another train pass onto the spur in the last hour?”

The switchman nodded. “They switched onto the spur without permission either.”

“How long ago?” Shea demanded.

“About twenty minutes.”

Without replying, Shea ran after Adeline and pulled himself up into the cabin. “According to the switchman,” he reported, “Cromwell’s train passed onto the spur twenty minutes ago.”

“Eighty miles to make up twenty minutes,” Jongewaard said thoughtfully. “It will be a near thing.” He pulled open the throttle to the last notch and, five minutes after leaving the junction, he had Adeline pounding over the rails at eighty-five miles an hour.

Flathead Lake came into view as they ran up the eastern shore. The largest freshwater lake in the western United States, it was twenty-eight miles long, sixteen miles wide, and covered one hundred eighty-eight square miles, with an average depth of one hundred sixty-four feet.

They were in the homestretch now of a long and grueling chase. Lofgren sat in the fireman’s seat and helped Jongewaard survey the track ahead. Bell, Shea, and Long formed a scoop brigade to feed the firebox. Not having leather gloves like the firemen, Bell wrapped his hands with rags the engineers used to wipe oil. The protection helped, but blisters were beginning to rise on his palms from the long hours of shoveling coal.

They soon reached a speed higher than the spur tracks were ever built to endure from a speeding train. There was no slowdown over bridges and trestles. Curves were taken on the outer edge. One double-reverse turn they whipped around in a violent arc rattled the bolts in the tender. Luckily, the tracks then became as straight as the crow flew. Jongewaard held the eighty-five-mile-an-hour pace for the next forty miles.

“Eureka!” Lofgren suddenly yelled, vigorously pointing ahead.

Everyone leaned from the cab, the icy wind bringing tears to their eyes. But there it was, four, maybe five, miles directly ahead, a faint puff of smoke.

46

MARGARET LOUNGED ON A SETTEE, WEARING AN embroidered silk robe, and stared at the champagne bubbles rising in her saucer-shaped coupe glass. “I wonder if it’s true,” she said softly.

Cromwell looked at her. “What’s true?”

“That this glass was modeled from the breast of Marie Antoinette.”

Cromwell laughed. “There is an element of truth in the legend, yes.”

Then Margaret gazed out the window Cromwell had raised in the back of the car—it was recessed into the rear wall and was inconspicuous when closed. The tracks that flashed under the wheels seemed to be stretching to infinity. She could see that they were traveling through a valley surrounded by forested mountains.

“Where are we?”

“The Flathead Valley in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.”

“How much farther to the border?”

“Another thirty minutes to the ferry landing at Flathead Lake,” said Cromwell, opening their second bottle of champagne for the day. “Half an hour to cross over onto the Great Northern tracks and we’ll be in Canada by sunset.”

She held up her glass. “To you, brother, and a brilliant flight from San Francisco. May our new endeavor be as successful as the last.”

Cromwell smiled smugly. “I’ll drink to that.”

AHEAD, in the cab of the locomotive, Abner was pressing the crew he had abducted at gunpoint from a small café beside the railyard in Brigham City, Utah: Leigh Hunt, a curly-red-haired engineer, and his fireman, Bob Carr, a husky individual who had worked as a brakeman before becoming a fireman, a step he hoped would eventually lead to his becoming an engineer. They had just come off a run and were having a cup of coffee before heading home when Abner held his gun to their heads and forced them into the cab of the engine pulling Cromwell’s fancy freight car.

As was the earlier crew, Wilbanks and Hall were thrown from the engine in the middle of nowhere at the same time Abner cut the telegraph wires.

Abner sat on the roof of the tender above the cab so he could prod Hunt and Carr to keep the Pacific locomotive hurtling over the rails to Flathead Lake. The black swirling clouds over the Rocky Mountains to the east caught his attention.

“Looks like a storm brewing,” he shouted to Carr.

“A chinook, by the look of it,” Carr yelled back over his shoulder as he scooped coal into the firebox.

“What’s a chinook?” asked Abner.

“It’s a windstorm that roars down out of the Rockies. Temperatures can drop as much as forty degrees in an hour and winds can blow over a hundred miles an hour, enough to blow railcars off the tracks.”

“How long before it strikes here?”

“Maybe an hour,” replied Carr. “About the time we’ll reach the train ferry dock at Woods Bay. Once we arrive, you’ll have to sit out the storm. The ferry won’t sail during a chinook.”

“Why not?” Abner demanded.

“With hundred-mile-an-hour winds, the lake turns into a frenzy. The wind whips the water into waves as high as twenty feet. The train ferry wasn’t built for rough water. No way the crew will take it out on the lake during a chinook.”

“We telegraphed ahead to have the ferry waiting for our arrival,” said Abner. “We’re going across, wind or no wind.”

BACK IN Cromwell’s rolling palace, Margaret had drifted into a light sleep from the champagne while her brother sat and relaxed with a newspaper he’d picked up when Abner abducted the train crew at Brigham City. Most of the news was about the San Francisco earthquake. He read that the fires had finally been put out and wondered if his mansion on Nob Hill and the bank building had survived.

He looked up, hearing a strange sound different from the clack of the steel wheels on steel rails. It came faint and far off. He stiffened as he recognized it as a train whistle. Cromwell was stunned, knowing now for certain that he was being pursued.

“Bell!” he exploded in anger.

Startled at his loud voice, Margaret sat up awake. “What are you shouting about?”

“Bell!” snapped Cromwell. “He’s chased us from San Francisco.”

“What are you saying?”

“Listen,” he ordered her. “Listen.”

Then she heard it, the unmistakable sound of a train’s steam whistle, barely perceptible, but it was there.

Margaret rushed to the rear window and peered down the track. It was as if a fist had struck her in the stomach. She could see a stream of black smoke rising beyond a curve above a windbreak of small trees.

“You must tell Abner!” she screamed.

Cromwell had anticipated her and climbed a ladder to the vent opening in the roof of the boxcar. He pushed aside the lid to the vent, stood above the roof, and shot off his revolver to get Abner’s attention over the clamor of the locomotive. Abner heard and hurried over the top of the tender, until he was only a dozen feet away from Cromwell.

“There is a train coming up behind us,” Cromwell shouted.

Abner braced his feet apart against the pitch and roll of the tender and gazed over the roof of the boxcar. The onrushing train had come around the curve now and was visible in the distance. It looked to be a locomotive and its tender, pulling no cars. It was coming, and coming on fast, as evident from the smoke exploding from its stack and laid flat by the headwind.

Now the two trains were in sight and sound of each other, with the ferry dock at Woods Bay on Flathead Lake only twenty miles away.

47

IT WAS AS IF ADELINE WAS A COME-FROM-BEHIND THOROUGHBRED pounding around the far turn into the back stretch, flying through the herd and vying for the lead. Her connecting rods were a blur as they whipped the massive drive wheels over the rails. No locomotive ever worked harder. From the Oakland railyard to the wilds of Montana, she had covered more distance faster than any locomotive in history. No one timed her speeds, but none on board her cab or those who had seen her hurtle past ever doubted that she had surpassed ninety miles an hour on straight and level stretches of track.

Jongewaard had the throttle against its stop, throwing Adeline over tracks that were never meant for such speeds. Both engineers sat in the cab seats, their eyes fixed on the track ahead. Bell and Long shoveled while Shea systematically banked the fire to keep it burning evenly for the maximum amount of heat for proper combustion.

The chugging sound of the steam exhaust became one continuous hiss and the smoke poured from the stack in an ever-growing cloud. Bell stopped shoveling every so often to stare at the train ahead, growing larger by the minute. There was no effort to sneak up on Cromwell now; he pulled the cord and gave the whistle a long shriek that cut through the breeze beginning to blow in over the lake. Bell’s lips were spread in a tight smile. He hoped Cromwell sensed that it was he who was charging down his throat.

Bell turned, looked up to the sky, and saw it had changed from a blue sea to a gray shroud from the chinook wind that howled out of the Rocky Mountains to the east. Great swirls of dust, leaves, and small debris were thrown like wheat chaff through a threshing machine. The water of Flathead Lake had gone from a dead calm to a turbulent mass in less than twenty minutes.

Then, suddenly, both Jongewaard and Lofgren shouted at once: “Wagon on the track!”

Every eye swung and stared at the track ahead.

A farmer with a hay wagon pulled by a team of horses was on a road crossing the tracks. He must have heard the engine’s whistle, Bell thought, but the farmer had badly misjudged the speed of the train, believing he could cross the tracks in plenty of time. Jongewaard heaved back the reverser Johnson bar, slowing the drive wheels until they stopped and spun backward in reverse, braking the speeding locomotive.

When the farmer realized the iron monster was only a hundred yards away, he whipped his horses in a frenzied attempt to drive them out of the path of onrushing death. By then, it was too late.

Adeline plowed into the wagon in an explosion of hay, wooden planks, splinters, and shattered wheels. The men in the cab instinctively ducked behind the protection of the boiler as debris clattered along the sides of the engine and flew over the roof onto the tender.

Miraculously, the horses had jumped forward and escaped without harm. Bell and the others did not witness the farmer’s fate. As soon as Jongewaard brought Adeline to a halt a hundred yards down the track, Bell and crew leaped from the cab and ran back to the crossing.

They were all vastly relieved to find the farmer lying no more than five feet from the rails with all his hands and feet intact. He had pushed himself to a sitting position and was looking around, befuddled at the demolished wreckage of his wagon.

“Are you injured?” asked Bell anxiously.

The farmer surveyed his arms and legs while feeling a rising bump on the head. “A rash of bumps and bruises,” he muttered. “But, wonder of wonders, I’m still in one piece, praise the Lord.”

“Your horses also survived without injury.”

Shea and Long helped the farmer to his feet. And led him to the horses that had seemingly forgotten their narrow brush with death and were eating the grass beside the road. He was glad to see his horses in sound shape but angered that his wagon was scattered over the landscape in a hundred pieces.

Bell read his mind and gave him a Van Dorn card. “Contact my detective agency,” he instructed. “They will compensate you for the loss of your wagon.”

“Not the railroad?” the farmer asked, confused.

“It wasn’t the railroad’s fault. A long story you’ll read about in the newspapers.” Bell turned and gazed in frustration down the tracks at the fading smoke from Cromwell’s locomotive. He refused to believe he had failed so close to his goal. But all was not lost. Already, Jongewaard had backed up Adeline to pick up Bell and the crew.

Seeing the farmer able to fend for himself, Jongewaard yelled to Bell. “Hop aboard. We’ve got time to make up.”

Bell, Lofgren, and the fireman had barely climbed back into the cabin when Jongewaard had Adeline barreling down the rails once again in hot pursuit of the bandit’s train. The chinook was upon them now. The wind blew the dust and loose foliage like foam flying from surf plunging onto a beach. Visibility had been cut to no more than two hundred yards.

Jongewaard could no longer peer out the side of the cab or his squinting eyes would have filled with the dust. Instead, he stared though the cab’s forward window, having no choice but to cut Adeline’s speed from seventy-five miles an hour down to forty-five.

He saw a semaphore beside the track with its flag in the horizontal position, signaling the locomotive to stop, but he ignored it. Next came a sign proclaiming the outer town limits of Woods Bay. Not knowing the exact distance to the ferry landing, he slowed down even more until Adeline was creeping along at twenty-five miles an hour.

Jongewaard turned to Bell. “Sorry about the slowdown, but I can’t see if the town docks are five hundred yards or five miles away. I’ve got to lower the speed in case we come upon the bandit’s freight car, or flatcars with logs, sitting on the main track.”

“How much time do you figure we lost?” asked Bell.

“Twelve minutes, by my watch.”

“We’ll catch them,” said Bell with measured confidence. “Not likely the ferry crew will risk crossing the lake in this weather.”

Bell was right about the ferry not normally running across the lake in rough water, but he missed the boat by underestimating Cromwell. The Butcher Bandit and his sister had not come this far to surrender meekly.

Cromwell and Margaret were not to be stopped. Already, their train was rolling across the dock onto the ferry.

48

THE RAILCAR FERRY WAS WAITING AT THE DOCK WHEN Cromwell’s train arrived. The locomotive was switched onto the track that led across the wooden dock onto the ferry. But that was as far as it would go. The three-man crew had decided it wasn’t safe to attempt a crossing until the chinook passed and the lake’s surface settled down. They were sitting in the small galley drinking coffee and reading newspapers and did not bother to get up when Cromwell’s train rolled on board.

Cromwell stepped down from his freight car and walked to the locomotive, bending into the stiff wind. He paused and studied the waves that were building and chopping on the lake. It reminded him of a furious sea. Then he studied the side-paddle, steam-powered ferryboat.

A faded wooden sign attached to the wheelhouse read KALISPELL. The boat was old. The paint was chipped and peeling, the wooden deck worn and rotted. It had seen many years of service—too many. But to Cromwell it looked sturdy enough to endure the severe wind and the valleys forming between the growing waves. He felt secure that it could steam to the west side of the lake. He was irritated at seeing no sign of the crew.

He looked up the track and felt gratified that the pursuing train was not in sight. He could only wonder why it became delayed. Whatever the reason, there was no time to dally. He waved to Abner in the cab of the locomotive. “See that the fireman feeds the firebox so we have steam when we reach the Great Northern tracks.”

“Consider it done,” replied Abner, pointing the muzzle of his gun at fireman Carr, who had overheard the conversation. “You heard the man. Keep shoveling.”

“Have you seen the boat crew?”

Abner shrugged. “I’ve seen no one.”

“Better roust them. We’ve got to get under way. That locomotive behind us may arrive any minute.”

“What about the train crew?” said Abner. “If I leave them alone, they might make a run for it.”

“You cast off the lines,” Cromwell ordered. “They can’t go anywhere if we drift away from the dock. I’ll look for the boat crew myself.”

Abner jumped to the deck, ran onto the dock. He found the bow and stern lines securing the ferry. The waves surged in from the middle of the lake and rocked the boat back and forth against the bumpers hanging along the starboard paddle box. Abner waited while the boat drifted away from the dock and the lines became taut. When the water surged back, the lines became slack, and Abner pulled them off their bollards and threw them over the railings of the Kalispell. Agile as a cat, he leaped back on the deck and returned to the cab of the locomotive.

Cromwell climbed a ladder to the wheelhouse and was thankful to get inside out of the howling wind. He found it empty and went down a stairwell that led to the galley, where he found the crew sitting around reading impassively. They looked up as he came down the stairs but showed little sign of response or interest.

“You Mr. Cromwell?” said a big, red-faced, heavily bearded man in a red plaid lumberman’s coat.

“Yes, I’m Cromwell.”

“We heard your train come onboard. I’m Captain Jack Boss, at your service.”

The laid-back attitude of Boss, who remained sitting, and his two-man crew, who showed utmost indifference, angered Cromwell. “It is of the greatest importance that we get under way immediately.”

Boss shook his head. “No can do. The lake is kicking up. It’s best if we wait until the storm blows over.”

As calmly as if he were lighting a cigar, Cromwell pulled his .38 Colt from a coat pocket and shot one of the crewmen in the forehead. The surprise was so complete the crewman slumped over and stared blankly, as if he were still reading newsprint.

“Good God!” was all Boss uttered, his face frozen in shock.

Cromwell pointed his gun at the face of the other crewman, who began to shake uncontrollably. “You will get this boat under way immediately or he goes, too.”

“You’re crazy,” gasped Boss.

“My attendant has already cast off the lines. I suggest you waste no more time protesting.”

Boss looked at his dead crewman and slowly, dazedly, came to his feet. He glared at Cromwell with a combined expression of disgust and fury. “You might as well shoot the rest of us,” he said slowly. “We’ll all die before we get to the other shore.”

“A chance we have to take,” Cromwell said, his voice hard and venomous.

Boss turned to his crewman, Mark Ragan. “You’ll have to operate the engine alone.”

Ragan, a young man yet to see seventeen, nodded with a pale face. “I can do it.”

“Then stoke the boiler and get up enough steam to make good headway.”

The crewman left the galley quickly and dropped down a ladder to the engine room. Boss, closely followed by Cromwell, climbed to the wheelhouse.

Cromwell stared at Boss. “Do not even think about going against my instructions, Captain, or your crewman in the engine room will die. Nor will I have any reservation of killing you, should you not take me to the rail landing on the far shore.”

“You’re diabolical scum,” Boss said, his face twisted with rage.

Cromwell laughed and gave Boss a look as cold as death. Then he turned and left the wheelhouse.

As he walked back to his palace boxcar, he heard the shrill blare of a steam whistle. It sounded as if it came from no more than a few hundred yards away. And then his ears caught the hiss of steam and the clatter of locomotive drive wheels. Through the debris hurled by the gusts from the chinook, he saw a large engine materialize from the gloom.

Too late, he thought complacently. The Kalispell had already drifted five feet from the end of the dock. No one or nothing could stop him now. Smiling to himself, he made his way back the boxcar and climbed inside.

JONGEWAARD BROUGHT Adeline to a grinding halt only thirty feet from the end of the dock’s tracks. Even before the big drive wheels stopped turning, Bell hopped from the cab and ran toward the end of the dock. The railcar ferry was drifting past the pilings out into the lake and the paddle wheels began to turn. The gap had broadened to eight feet when Bell reached the dock’s edge.

He did not hesitate, did not think about or analyze his actions, did not step back for a running start. It seemed too far, but without an instant’s interruption, he leaped from the dock. Knowing the distance was too great for him to land on his feet, he reached out and grabbed the railing with his hands, his body falling and swinging like a pendulum against the hull of the ferry. He came within a hair of losing his grip and falling in the water, as the impact knocked the wind from his body. He held the railing in a death grip until his breath returned, but the growing ache in his chest did not fade. Slowly, almost agonizingly, he pulled himself over the railing onto the deck of the ferry alongside Cromwell’s boxcar.

Bell lightly ran his fingers over his chest and realized he had cracked one, maybe two ribs. Clenching his teeth against the pain, he struggled to his feet and grabbed one of the ladder rungs leading to the roof of the boxcar to support himself from the pitching and heaving of the ship, plowing into the teeth of the chinook. As the Kalispell moved farther into the middle of the lake, the windswept waves surged over the bow and onto the low track deck, swirling around the wheels of the locomotive. The terrible winds brought a stunning rise in temperature of over twenty degrees.

Bell cast off any thought of caution. He threw open the loading door of the boxcar and rolled onto the floor, gasping from the agony in his chest, the .45 Colt steady in his hand. Surprise was in his favor. Cromwell was not alarmed, believing that it was Abner who was entering the car. Too late, he saw that it was his worst enemy.

“Hello, Jacob,” Bell said with a cordial grin. “Did you miss me?”

There came a few moments of stunned stillness.

Bell came to his knees and then his feet, keeping the Colt aimed at Cromwell’s heart, and closed the door to the boxcar to seal it off from the gusts of wind that were battering the old ferry. He made a quick scan of the interior of the car. “Well, well, well,” he said with interest. “My compliments.” He swung his free hand around the exotically furnished car. “So this is how you escaped your crimes in style.”

“I’m glad you approve,” Cromwell said conversationally.

Bell smiled in narrow-eyed guardedness without lowering his Colt. He glanced at the leather trunks lined against one wall. “The cash from your bank. Must be an impressive amount.”

“Enough to initiate a new enterprise,” Cromwell answered cordially.

“You followed us?” Margaret said, baffled and incredulous. It was more a question than a statement.

“Not exactly followed,” Bell said curtly. “More like chased.”

Predictably, Cromwell recovered his composure. “How did you arrive so quickly?”

“Fortunately, I had a faster engine and dedicated crewmen.”

“You knew Margaret and I left San Francisco?”

“I tracked down this freight car and figured you had it repainted with a new serial number. My agents had it under surveillance, waiting for the moment when you would use it again. Unfortunately, the earthquake came and my agents had more-pressing duties elsewhere.”

“And you discovered that it had left the railyard,” Cromwell assumed.

Bell nodded. “Only after I went to your bank and saw that you had cleaned out the vault of all large-currency bills.”

“But how could you have known we were heading for Canada?”

“The dispatcher at the Southern Pacific office,” Bell said, lying so as not to involve Marion. “I put a gun to his head and persuaded him to tell me what tracks your chartered train was traveling. Then it was only a matter of filling in the cracks.”

“Very ingenious, Mr. Bell.” Cromwell, champagne glass in hand, stared at Bell appraisingly. “It seems I have a penchant for underestimating you.”

“I’ve misjudged you a time or two.”

Margaret spoke in a tone barely above a whisper. “What do you intend to do?” Her shock had turned to desperation.

“Hold your brother for the local sheriff after we reach shore. Then assemble the necessary papers to escort the two of you to Chicago, where he’ll have a speedy trial without a fixed jury of your old pals and hang for his crimes.” Bell’s smile turned cold and his voice ominous. “And you, dear Margaret, will probably spend the best years of your life in a federal jail.”

Bell caught the exchange of knowing looks between Cromwell and Margaret. He could only wonder what they were thinking, but he was pretty sure it didn’t bode well. He watched as Cromwell sank into one end of an ornate couch.

“Our voyage may take a while in this weather.” As if to accent his statement, the bottle of champagne slid off its table and onto the floor. “A pity. I was going to offer you a drink.”

Bell could only guess where Cromwell kept his Colt .38. “I never drink while on duty,” Bell said facetiously.