The Chase Clive Cussler (read more books TXT) 📖

mad and wild chase had come to a fitting climax in front of the quarry it had pursued through the backwoods of hell.

“We may be jumping the gun,” said Bronson. “He hasn’t attempted to rob the bank yet. We can’t arrest him without a crime.”

“Maybe. But on the drive down here from San Francisco, I had much to think about. Better we take Cromwell now, before he has time to act. If he sees through our trap again, we’re lost. I’ll worry about gathering enough evidence to convict him later. Besides, he’s not on home ground. He can’t call in expensive attorneys to get him out on bond.”

Bell was well aware that no one had had the time to exit the train during the few minutes since it had come to a standstill. He climbed from the automobile and walked unsteadily toward the Pullman car, the aches and pain and weariness slowly falling away. He halted abruptly, and slipped between the Pullman and the coal tender, as two stewards wrestled a motorcycle from the car to the ground beside the track.

He waited patiently for a few minutes until a man dressed in the uniform of a railroad conductor stepped from the Pullman car and threw one leg over the seat of the motorcycle that Bell recognized as a Harley-Davidson. The man’s back was to Bell as Bell stepped silently alongside the Pullman car and stopped only when he was no more than five feet behind the man, who was leaning down to open the fuel valve to the carburetor in preparation for starting the engine.

“The Harley is a good machine,” Bell said calmly, “but I prefer the Indian.”

The man on the motorcycle froze at the sound of the familiar voice. He slowly turned and saw an apparition standing behind him. Eerie illumination fell from overhead electric lights along the railroad siding. The figure wore a short leather coat over jodhpurs and boots that looked like they had been dragged through a swamp. A pair of goggles was pushed back on his head, revealing strands of blond hair coated in dried mud. But there was no mistaking the face, the piercing eyes, and the begrimed mustache that covered the upper lip.

“You!”

“Not very original,” Bell said cynically. “But since I used the same expression at the bank in Telluride, I won’t criticize.”

A silence came over the two men that seemed to last a lifetime, but it was only the few seconds that it took Cromwell to see that the apparition really was Isaac Bell. Cromwell just stood there in growing disbelief, his face suddenly turning pale.

“You were dead!” he gasped. “I shot you!”

“Twice, as a matter of fact,” said Bell with a hard edge to his voice. His right hand gripped the 1905 Colt .45 automatic, its muzzle aimed squarely between Cromwell’s eyes and held as steady as an iron bar in concrete.

For the first time in his life, Jacob Cromwell was taken completely off guard. His agile mind, filled with overconfidence, had never considered how he would act should the time ever come when he was apprehended. The unthinkable was never dwelled upon. He had always thought of himself as untouchable. Now he stood face-to-face with his archenemy, who should have been dead. He felt like a captain whose unsinkable ship had run up on the rocks.

Cromwell’s Colt .38 was in his coat pocket, but he knew Bell would blow his brains out before he could reach for it. Slowly, he lifted his hands into the air in abject defeat.

“What happens now?” he asked.

“I’m going to borrow your special train to take you back to San Francisco. There, I’ll turn you over to the police, until such time as you’re tried for murder and hung.”

“You have it all mapped out.”

“The day had to come, Cromwell. You should have quit when you were ahead.”

“You can’t arrest me. I have committed no crime.”

“Then why are you disguised as a railroad conductor?”

“Why don’t you shoot me now and get it over with?” Cromwell asked, his composed arrogance coming back on keel.

“A mere slap on the hand for your crimes,” Bell said caustically. “Better you have plenty of time to think about the hangman’s noose tightening around your murdering neck.”

Bronson came from around the rear of the Pullman car, his Smith & Wesson double-action .44 revolver drawn and pointed at Cromwell’s chest. “Nice going, Isaac. You nabbed our friend here before he could commit another crime.”

Bell handed Bronson a pair of Tower nickel-plated, double-lock handcuffs. The agent wasted no time in snapping them on Cromwell’s wrists. Then he gave the bandit a thorough search and found the .38 Colt automatic.

“The weapon you used to commit three dozen murders,” Bronson said with a cold voice.

“Where did you come from?” Cromwell demanded at seeing Bronson and knowing with certainty that these men would not hesitate to shoot him if he gave the slightest indication of trying to escape.

“Isaac drove us from San Francisco in his automobile,” he answered as if it were an everyday event.

“Impossible!” snorted Cromwell.

“I thought so, too,” said Bronson, leading Cromwell up the steps into the Pullman car, where he took his own handcuffs, placed them around Cromwell’s ankles, and roughly shoved him onto a couch.

Bell walked back up the track and stared sadly at the mauled Locomobile. A barrel-chested man carrying an oil can in the coveralls and denim striped hat of a locomotive engineer came up behind him and stared dumbly at the automobile.

“How in God’s name did that derelict come to be on the tracks in front of my engine?”

“It’s a long story,” said Bell wearily.

“What’s going to happen to it?”

Bell spoke quietly, almost reverently: “It’s going to be shipped back to the factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where it will be rebuilt until it is as good as new.”

“Fix this wreck?” said the engineer, shaking his head. “Why bother?”

Bell looked at the Locomobile with a loving expression in his eyes and said, “Because she deserves it.”

34