The Chase by Clive Cussler (ebook reader 8 inch .txt) 📕

railroad ties, but it was compensated for by knowing that Pardee had been hoodwinked and would end up empty-handed.

27

BELL WAS CARRIED TO THE TELLURIDE HOSPITAL, where he was treated by the town doctor. The first bullet out of Cromwell’s Colt had entered and exited his thigh, causing only minor damage to the tissue. The doctor said it would heal within a month. The doctor then stitched the scalp wound, sewing up the crease as neatly as a tailor mending a torn suit pocket.

After ignoring the doctor’s demands that he remain in the hospital for a few days, Bell limped to the depot to take the next train to Denver. Wearing a hat to cover the bandage around his head, he, along with Curtis, watched with anger and sadness as the coffin containing Irvine was lifted into the baggage car by Sheriff Pardee’s deputies. Then he turned and held out his hand to Pardee. “Sheriff, I can’t thank you enough for your cooperation. I’m grateful.”

Pardee shook Bell’s hand. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said sincerely. “Did he have a family?”

“Fortunately, no wife or children, but he lived with an aging mother.”

“Pour soul. I suppose it’s the county poorhouse for her.”

“She’ll be taken care of in a good nursing home.”

“A good nursing home doesn’t come cheap. Did Irvine have money?”

“No,” replied Bell, “but I do.”

Pardee refrained from any more questions. “If only things had fallen our way.”

“Our well-laid plans certainly turned into a fiasco,” said Bell, seeing the baggage car door close behind the coffin. “The bandit made me out the fool.”

“Not your fault,” said Pardee. “He fooled us all, and I was the biggest fool. I’m certain now the destitute widow who my wife and I took in was in cahoots with him. I should have been suspicious when she finagled information out of me about the bank’s operations.”

“But you didn’t tell her there was a trap being set. Cromwell would have never walked into the bank if he suspected a trap.”

Pardee shook his head. “They bought your story—hook, line, and sinker. If only we had known he was going to wear women’s clothing, we might not have thought twice before we shot him down like the dog he is.”

“According to reports of his other robberies, he never dressed as a woman.”

“Even if the trap turned sour, my posse and I should have apprehended them. Stupidly, I thought they’d stay on the road. It never crossed my mind they would use the railroad track bed as an escape route until it was too late. By the time I figured out how they had outfoxed me, they were long gone.”

“Were the train passenger lists checked in Montrose?”

“I wired the stationmaster, but they had already left on the train to Grand Junction,” answered Curtis. “He didn’t remember two women boarding, but he noticed two men. He said that one looked as if he were sick.”

“There was blood on the back step of the bank,” said Pardee with a tight smile. “You must have plugged him.”

“Not seriously enough to stop him,” Bell muttered quietly.

“I telegraphed the marshal of the territory. He had deputies in Grand Junction search all the trains going east and west but found no trace of two women traveling together.”

Bell leaned on a cane given to him by Pardee. “I’m beginning to know how the bandit’s mind works. He went back to wearing men’s clothes and dressed his sister as a man, too. The marshal, looking for two females, never suspected them.”

“A clever man, Cromwell.”

“Yes,” admitted Bell, “he is that.”

“Where do you go from here?” asked Pardee.

“Back to Denver and start all over again.”

“But now you know the bandit’s name and habits.”

“Yes, but making a case is impossible. No federal prosecutor would waste time on an indictment with such flimsy evidence.”

“You’ll nail him,” Pardee said confidently.

“We’ll work even harder now that we’ve got a personal reason to see him hung,” said Bell.

WHEN BELL and Curtis reached Denver late in the evening, a hearse was waiting to take Irvine to the local mortuary.

“He was my closest friend,” said Curtis. “I’ll console his mother and take care of the funeral arrangements.”

“Thank you,” Bell said. “I’ll take care of the costs.”

Bell took a taxi to the Brown Palace Hotel. Entering his suite, he removed his clothes and relaxed in a tub of hot water, propping his wounded leg on the edge to keep the bandage from getting wet. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander over the events of the past few days. Bell now knew the woman he’d passed in the New Sheridan Hotel was Margaret Cromwell. When her brother entered the bank from the front door, she was waiting in the rear with a horse and buggy. The picture of Cromwell made up as a woman disgusted him, yet he could not help but respect the shrewd, calculating mind of the Butcher Bandit. Avoiding Sheriff Pardee’s posse by driving the rig down the railroad track bed was a stroke of genius.

At first, Bell thought Cromwell would not tempt fate with another robbery. The possibility seemed extremely remote, but, as he had with all the criminals he’d apprehended, Bell began to make inroads inside Cromwell’s mind. He trained himself to think like the bandit. The more Bell thought about it, the more he became convinced that Cromwell believed he was invincible and immune to every investigation by law enforcement officers, especially the agents of the Van Dorn Detective Agency.

The next step would have to be carefully thought out. His mind was considering alternatives to accumulate enough evidence to arrest Cromwell when he heard a knock on his door. Favoring his good leg and suffering a brief bout of dizziness caused by his head wound as he stood, Bell climbed awkwardly out of the tub, put on a robe, and limped to the door. After pulling it open, he was surprised to see Joseph Van Dorn standing in the hallway.

Van Dorn looked up at