The Wrecker

54

A WAVE OF FIRE BROKE OVER DASHWOOD. FLAME SPLASHED his trousers, his coat, and his hat. Smoke spewed the stench of burning hair.

The Wrecker laughed triumphantly.

“You choose, Bell. Save the boy or try to catch me.”

He ran toward the locomotives parked at the edge of the siding.

Isaac Bell had no choice. He tore off his coat and waded into the smoke.

The fire burned most fiercely on Dashwood’s chest, but the first priority was to save his eyes. Bell wrapped his coat around the boy’s head to smother the flames, then threw his body over the fire on the boy’s chest and legs. Dashwood woke up screaming. What Bell thought were cries of pain and fear muffled by his coat turned out to be frantic apologizing. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bell, I’m sorry I let him get the drop on me.”

“Can you stand up?”

Face black with soot, half his hair singed to a greasy mat, blood streaming down his throat, Dashwood jumped to his feet. “I’m O.K., sir, I’m sorry-”

“Find Archie Abbott. Tell him to round up the Van Dorns and follow me up the mountain.”

Bell scooped his knife, his derringer, and his Browning from the ballast. Kincaid’s derringer lay nearby, and he pocketed it, too.

“Kincaid owns East Oregon Lumber. If there’s a back way out, the killer knows it. Tell Archie on the jump!”

A sudden shriek of a locomotive whistle snapped Bell’s head around.

Kincaid had climbed into the cab of the nearest engine. He was holding the whistle cord and attempting to tie down the braided loop.

Bell raised his Browning, aimed carefully, and fired. The distance was great, even for such an accurate weapon. A bullet whanged off steel. The Wrecker coolly finished tying the cord and started to jump through the open door of the cab. Bell fired again through the open window, intending to pin him down until he got there. Kincaid jumped anyway and hit the ground running.

The whistle stopped abruptly. Kincaid looked back, his face a mask of dismay.

In the sudden silence, Bell realized his shot had missed Kincaid but by chance had severed the whistle cord. Kincaid started to turn back to the locomotives. Bell fired again. The whistle was important, a signal of some sort. So important that Kincaid was running back to the locomotives in the face of pistol fire. Bell triggered another shot.

Kincaid’s hat flew in the air, ripped from his head by Bell’s lead slug. He turned away and ran behind a tender. The square bulk of the coal-and-water carrier blocked Bell’s field of fire. He ran toward the tender as fast as he could. Rounding it, he saw the Wrecker, far ahead of him, jump from the end of the ballast roadbed. When Bell reached the end of the roadbed, he glimpsed the Wrecker running down the middle of the brushed-out line. He made an elusive target, weaving and jinking, flickering through the shadows of the trees that crowded the path, disappearing as the bed curved with the slope of the mountain.

Bell jumped from the ballast to the cleared forest floor and charged after him.

Rounding the turn in the brushed-out roadbed, he saw in the distance, down a long straightaway, a flash of yellow-Kincaid’s Model 35 Thomas Flyer-and then a flicker of Kincaid running up to it.

Kincaid reached under the red leather driver’s seat, pulled out a long-barreled revolver, and coolly fired three shots in rapid succession. Bell dove for cover, the slugs whistling around him. Scrambling behind a tree, he snapped off another shot. Kincaid was in front of the car, trying to start his motor, bracing himself with his left hand on one of the headlights and turning the starter crank with his right.

Bell fired again. It came close. Kincaid ducked but kept cranking. That was six shots. He had one shot left before he had to replace the magazine.

The motor caught. Bell heard a ragged chugging as, one by one, the four gigantic cylinders boomed to life. Kincaid leaped behind the steering wheel. Bell was close enough now to see the fenders fluttering from the cold motor running rough. But the car was built high in the back and the canvas top was up, its small rear window covered over with three spare tires that hung from the top. All he could see of Kincaid was his hand when he reached out to grip the side-mounted gearshifter. Too hard a shot to waste his last bullet on.

The rattling, chugging noise dropped in pitch. The motor was engaging the drive chain. Bell put on a burst of speed, heedless of the rough ground. The Thomas started moving. Blue smoke trailed it. The rattling chug sound sharpened to a hollow, authoritative snap as it accelerated up the cleared right-of-way. Fast as a man. Now fast as a horse.

Bell ran after the yellow car. He had one shot left in the Browning’s magazine, no clear view of Kincaid, who was hidden by the canvas top and the tires on back, and no time to reload. Bell was running like the wind, but the Thomas Flyer was pulling away.

Ahead of the Thomas, the clearing suddenly widened where the Southern Pacific right-of-way crossed the East Oregon Lumber Company’s muddy trail. The Thomas swerved off the brushed-out bed onto the lumber trail and slowed as its wheels spun in soft mud and deep wagon ruts. Its engine was howling with effort, its tires flinging earth and water, its exhaust pipe spewing smoke.

Bell drew within feet of the Thomas and jumped.

He grabbed for the rearmost spare tire with his free hand and clamped his powerful fingers inside its rubber rim. With Bell’s weight on back increasing the traction of its rear wheels, the Thomas picked up speed.

Boots dragging in the mud, Bell grabbed hold with both hands to work his way forward. Swinging his feet for momentum, he reached to the right side of a trunk mounted on the rear leaf springs and caught hold of a leather strap, which he used to pull himself alongside and onto the rear fender. The wheel’s twelve mud-crusted spokes blurred under him. The fender sagged under his weight, rubbing the tire. The screech of metal on rubber alerted Kincaid to his presence.

Kincaid instantly slammed on the brake to throw Bell off. Bell went with the maneuver, letting his momentum carry him forward and closer to Kincaid. He reached for the shifting levers, missed, but grabbed a brass tube that delivered oil to the chain drive. Kincaid swung a monkey wrench at Bell’s hand. Bell let go and fell. As he did, he gripped a utility box bolted to the running board.

Now he was partly ahead of the rear wheel, which threatened to roll over him. The chain, just inside the wheel, whizzed inches from his face. He yanked his automatic out of his coat, reached in front of the wheel, and jammed the muzzle under the upper half of the chain. The chain jammed the gun into the teeth of the sprocket. The automobile jerked hard and skidded on locked wheels.

Kincaid disengaged the clutch. The chain jumped. Bell’s gun went flying, and the car surged ahead. Steering with his left hand, Kincaid swung the wrench. It grazed Bell’s hat. Bell clutched the utility box with his right arm, kept his left hooked over the fender, and pulled his throwing knife from his right boot. Kincaid swung the wrench.

Forced to let go before Kincaid shattered bone, Bell jabbed his knife into the sidewall of Kincaid’s tire. The racing wheel ripped the knife out of Bell’s hand, and he fell to the road.

The Thomas Flyer’s exhaust sounded a hollow snap as it picked up speed, crested the slope, and disappeared around a hairpin turn. Bell rolled to his feet, covered in mud, and ran back searching the ruts for his gun. He found his hat first and then the automatic, stripped it, blew off the mud, reassembled it, and exchanged magazines for a fully loaded one. He now had one slug chambered and six on call. Then he discarded his coat, which was heavy with mud, and started running up the timber road after the Wrecker.

Hoofs rumbled behind him.

Archie Abbott rounded the bend, leading a posse of ten Van Dorn detectives on horseback with Winchester rifles jutting from their saddle scabbards. Archie gave him the horse they brought for him. Bell started to mount. The horse tried to bite his leg.

“Lillian Hennessy didn’t have any trouble riding him,” said Abbott.

Bell flexed his powerful left arm to draw Thunderbolt’s head down and spoke sternly into his pointed ear. “Thunderbolt. We have work to do.” The animal let Bell on board, and poured himself over the rough ground, pulling ahead of the pack.

After two miles, Bell saw a gleam of yellow through the trees.

The Thomas was stopped in the middle of the road. The right rear tire was half off the wheel and rim cut. Bell’s knife, still sticking out of it, had done it in. Kincaid’s footprints headed straight up the road. Bell ordered one man to stay behind, replace the tire, and bring the car along.

At the end of three more hard-slogging miles up the mountain, with less than a mile to go to the East Oregon Lumber Company’s camp, the horses were tiring. Even the eighteen-hand monster under Bell was breathing hard. But he and Thunderbolt were still in the lead when they ran into the Wrecker’s ambush.

Flame lanced from the dark trees. Winchester rifles boomed. A rain of lead exploded through the air. A heavy slug fanned Bell’s face. Another plucked his sleeve. He heard a man cry out and a horse go down behind him. The Van Dorns dove for cover, dragging their own long guns from their scabbards. Dodging the flailing hooves of frightened animals, the detectives scattered off the road. Bell stayed on his horse, firing repeatedly in the direction of the attack, his Winchester’s ejection lever a blur of motion. When his men had finally found safety in the trees, he jumped down and took up a position behind a thick hemlock.

“How many?” called Abbott.

In answer came a second fusillade of high-powered slugs crackling through the brush.

“Sounds like six or seven,” Bell answered. He reloaded his rifle. The Wrecker had chosen well. Slugs were pouring down from high above. His gunmen could see the Van Dorns, but, to see back, the Van Dorns had to expose their heads to gunfire.

There was only one way to deal with it.

“Archie?” Bell called. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Boys^?”

“Ready, Isaac,” came the chorus.

Bell waited a full minute.

“Now!”

The Van Dorns charged.

THE WRECKER KEPT A cool head. Nothing about the Van Dorn Detective Agency surprised him anymore. Nor was their bravery in doubt. So he was already half expecting their concentrated, disciplined counterattack. Philip Dow kept a cool head too, firing only when he could see a target flitting through the trees, clearly a man most alive when he was in battle. But Dow’s lumberjacks were thugs accustomed to fighting two on one. Quicker with fists or ax handles than rifles, they panicked in the face of ten guns coming up the hill spitting fire like the devil’s brigade.

The Wrecker felt them waver. Seconds later, they broke and ran, some actually dropping their rifles, stampeding through the forest for higher ground as if, in their panicked state, they thought hiding would save them. Nearby, Dow kept firing. Not that there was much to hit among the targets dodging tree to tree, but ever closer.

“Fall back,” the Wrecker ordered quietly. “Why shoot them when we can drown them?”

Isaac Bell had ruined his plan to signal Dow by locomotive whistles. If Dow had even heard the bare few seconds of a single locomotive whistle, which was all the noise he had produced before Bell started shooting, the assassin had failed to understand the go-ahead to blow up the dam that held Lake Lillian.

The two men retreated from the ambush site, loping up the same mule deer trail that Dow had led his men down from the lumber camp. When they got to the camp, lumberjacks and mule skinners who weren’t part of Dow’s gang were peering down the road at the sound of gunfire. Seeing the Wrecker and Dow emerge from the trees, rifles in hand, they wisely retreated into their bunkhouses, leaving questions to those who were fools enough to ask armed men.

“Philip,” said the Wrecker. “I’m counting on you to blow the dam.”

“Consider it done.”

“They won’t go easy on you.”

“They’ll have to catch me first,” said Dow. He offered his hand.

The Wrecker took it gravely, imparting a sense of ceremony. He was not one bit emotionally moved but he was relieved. Whatever strange codes the assassin lived by, Dow would detonate the explosives if it took the last breath in his body.

“I’ll cover you,” he told Dow. “Give me your rifle. I’ll hold them off as long as I’ve got ammunition.”

He would make his final escape when the flood swept the Cascade Canyon Bridge into the gorge. If his luck held, he would be the last man across it.