And then, twenty yards away, the flying engine thundered into the curve and took the siding with a lurch that sent logs hurtling towards Bond off the top of the tender.
There was a shrill scream o£ metal as the flanges on the six-feet-tall driving wheels ground into the bend, a swift impression of smoke and flame and pounding machinery, and then a glimpse into the cabin and of the black-and-silver figure of Spang, spreadeagled, clinging to the side of the cabin with one hand and with the other hand outflung to the long iron handle of the throttle lever.
Bond’s gun shouted its four words. There was a lightning impression of a white face jerked up towards the sky and then the great black-and-gold engine was past and hurtling towards the shadowy wall of the Spectre Mountains, the beam of its pilot-light scything at the darkness ahead and its automatic warning-bell clanging sadly on, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.
Bond slowly tucked the Beretta into his trousers and stood looking after the coffin of Mr Spang, and the trail of smoke drifted over his head and for a moment put out the moon.
Tiffany Case came running to him and they stood side by side and watched the flaming banner from the tall smoke-stack and listened to the mountains throw back the echo of the charging locomotive. The girl clutched his arm as the engine gave a sudden swerve and vanished behind a spur of rock. And now there was only a faraway drumming in the mountains and a red glow that flickered off the crags as The Cannonball tore on down the cutting into the belly of the rock.
And suddenly there was a great tongue of fire and a terrible iron crash as if a battleship had run on a reef. And then a muffled clanging that seemed to come from under their feet. And, finally, a deep distant boom from the bowels of the earth and a barrage of miscellaneous echoes.
And then, with the noise gone, a steady, singing silence.
Bond heaved a deep sigh as if he was just waking up. So that was the end of one of the Spangs, of one of the brutal, theatrical, overblown dead-end adults who made up the Spangled Mob. He had been a stage-gangster, surrounded with stage properties, but that didn’t alter the fact that he had intended to kill Bond.
“Let’s get away from here,” Tiffany Case said urgently. “I’ve had enough of this.”
Bond felt the pain creeping back into his body as his tension relaxed. “Yes,” he said shortly. He was glad to turn his back on the memory of the up-turned white face in the beautiful black, charging engine. He felt light-headed. He wondered if he would make it, “We’ll have to get to the road. It’ll be hard going. Come on.”
It took them an hour and a. half to cover the two miles and, by the time he collapsed in the dirt beside the cement highway, Bond was delirious. It was the girl who had got him there. But for her he would never have kept a straight course. He would have stumbled about amongst the cactus and rock and mica until his strength was exhausted and the broiling sun came to finish the job.
And now she was cradling his head against her and talking softly to him and wiping the sweat off his face with the corner of her shirt.
And every now and then she paused to look up and down the dead-straight concrete road whose horizons were already shimmering in the heat waves of early morning.
An hour later she jumped to her feet and tucked in her shirt and went and stood in the middle of the road. A low black car was coming out of the dancing haze which hid the distant valley of Las Vegas.
It rolled to a stop just in front of her and a hawk-like face under an untidy mop of straw-coloured hair stuck itself out of the window. Keen grey eyes briefly looked her over, They glanced at the prostrate figure of the man in the dust beside the road and came back to her.