The Chase ib-1 Page 35

  “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.

&nb
sp; 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.

  The car took another sudden lurch as the ferry tipped over to one side, the entire hull vibrating as one of the paddle wheels thrashed out of the water. Margaret gasped in fear and stared at the water that was seeping in widening puddles along the bottom of the freight door.

  OUTSIDE, the wind shrieked, and the Kalispell creaked and groaned against the onslaught of the mounting waves that rolled down the length of Flathead Lake. The tired old vessel burrowed her bow into the gale-driven crests before dropping sickeningly into the troughs. A towering wave broke out the forward windows, sending sheets of water into the wheelhouse.

  Captain Boss pulled up his coat collar and grasped the helm desperately as the gale lashed him with spray that stung the skin of his face and hands.

  A whistle shrilled through the speaking tube from the engine room. Boss picked it up, said, “Wheelhouse.”

  Ragan’s voice came with a hollow tone through the tube. “I’m taking water down here, Captain.”

  “Can the pumps handle it?”

  “So far. But the hull is creaking something awful. I fear the bulkheads might give way.”

  “Get ready to clear out if it gets bad. Make your way to the roof over the galley and unlash the raft.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Ragan. “What about you, Captain?”

  “Call me when you leave the engine room. I’ll follow if I can.”

  “What about the people on the train? We can’t just abandon them.”

  Boss was a man with moral depth, a God-fearing man of great inner strength from the old school whose word was his bond. He was well respected by all who lived around the lake. He gazed through the broken wheelhouse window at the far shore and the mad water thrashing over the bow and felt certain the Kalispell was not going to make it.

  “They’re my responsibility,” he said slowly. “You save yourself.”

  “God bless you, Captain.”

  Then the tube went silent.

  49

  THE TORNADO WINDS OF THE CHINOOK WERE THE most destructive in memory. Barns were flattened, roofs carried away, trees ripped by their roots, and telegraph and telephone lines downed. The full force of the warm winds roared over Flathead Lake and flogged the water into a swirling turbulence that battered the weary old Kalispell unmercifully as she wallowed in the valleys between the waves. Already, the lifeboat that Captain Boss had hoped would save lives had been torn from its lashed mounting and shattered, its wreckage swept into the restless water.

  Boss struggled with the helm in a desperate attempt to keep the Kalispell on a straight course toward the west shoreline, now only two miles away. He nurtured a slim hope that they might reach the safety of the little harbor of Rollins, but, deep inside, he knew the odds were stacked against him and his boat. There was a constant danger the ferry might swing. The engine, tender, and freight car were t
he straws that would break the camel’s back.

  Without their weight, the Kalispell might have ridden higher in the water and not have suffered as badly from the huge waves that swept across her lowered track deck. Boss looked down at the bow and saw that it was badly damaged. Timbers on the exposed part of the bow were being smashed and torn from their beams.

  His clothes and lumberman’s coat soaked through to his skin, Boss grimly took one hand off the wheel, held the speaking tube to his mouth, and whistled. There was a lag of nearly thirty seconds before Ragan answered.

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “How does it look down there?”

  “I’ve got good steam, but the water is still rising.” Ragan’s voice was tinged with fear. “It’s over my ankles.”