"Yeah," said one of them. "But it's gonna be worth it."
He said so with deep satisfaction…
***
When Adler's wagon train started around the bend in the ledge, Clayburn and the others were waiting above them, concealed behind the chopped-through pines and the rock platforms.
A single point rider came around the bend into sight below first. Clayburn saw with some disappointment that he was neither Wilks nor Adler. Which meant that Wilks was probably nursing his bullet-broken arm in one of the wagons, and Adler was riding drag behind the last of his twelve freight wagons.
The point-riding guard was directly below when the horse-drawn chuck wagon came around the bend. It was followed by the first of the freight wagons, then the second. Clayburn waited tensely until the third freight wagon had gone past below him and the fourth one was nearing. Then he raised his carbine and took aim at the point rider as Blue did the same. They fired at the same time. The shots hammered the guard from his saddle and flung him over the lip of the ledge toward the pass bottom far below.
At the signal, the teamsters cut all the securing ropes. The two big trees and the released rocks went thundering down the steep slope, sending up a huge cloud of snow and dust in their wake. They crashed down on the ledge between the rear of the third freight wagon and the lead mules of the fourth one. Some of the big rocks bounced off the ledge and kept on going down toward the bottom of the pass. But enough settled on the ledge itself, together with both trees, to block it completely. The fourth freight wagon was stopped dead, and it was the only one in view behind the barrier. The rest were out of sight, back around the bend.
The driver of the chuck wagon and the men handling the four freight wagons that were in sight began pulling out of their shocked surprise. They snatched up rifles, began firing up the slope.
But Clayburn, Blue, and the four teamsters with them were also firing. And they had no surprise to pull out of before taking aim. They worked their way down toward the ledge, shooting as they went.
The chuck-wagon driver was shot out of his seat before he could do more than start to lift his rifle. One of Adler's freighters was killed in midair as he leaped toward the ground. Another was smashed off the ledge as he scrambled for cover.
The man who'd been driving the fourth freight wagon sprinted south and vanished around the bend. The only Adler man still alive on the north side of the ledge barrier dropped his rifle and Colt, stepping out from behind his wagon with his hands held high. The first of Clayburn's teamsters to reach the man knocked him cold with his rifle stock.
The teamsters were climbing up onto the wagons when Clayburn and Blue reached the ledge. Clayburn found that from there he could not see the mules and wagon on the other side of the barricade. The lead teamster got the chuck wagon moving north. The point-rider's horse had long since disappeared up the ledge at a gallop.
As the first freight wagon started up, Clayburn and Blue climbed up onto the back of the third one, watching the huge barricade of rocks and trees behind it. The second freight wagon followed the first.
Rifle barrels appeared over the top of the ledge block-then some heads started to inch up on the other side. Blue and Clayburn fired simultaneously. The heads ducked back out of sight. The third freight wagon got rolling.
The wagons picked up speed as they moved north on the ledge. In a few minutes they turned another bend. The great barrier they'd sent crashing down on the ledge could no longer be seen behind them.
A mile farther, the slope above them became much less steep. Halting, they worked swiftly at detaching the mule teams from the wagons, leaving the mules in their traces. The same was done with the chuck wagon and its horse teams. Then, one by one, they rolled each of the wagons over the ledge, sending it crashing down into the rocks below.
When the last one had gone over, Clayburn looked down at the broken wagon and scattered freight. His brief smile was a bleak one. He turned to help the others in getting the horse and mule teams up the slope.
Beyond the crest they entered a narrow trail through dense timber. A little farther on they came to where they'd left their saddle horses. The teamsters mounted theirs and continued west, pulling the teams of mules and horses after them by lead ropes, heading for the pass where Cora's wagons waited. Blue and Clayburn stayed behind, concealed on either side of the narrow trail. Ready to cut down anyone who came riding after them.
Clayburn didn't think anyone would. Adler's outfit had only a couple of horses left with which to go anywhere. Adler wasn't going to find two men willing to commit suicide by trying to catch a larger number of armed men or hit at Cora's wagon train itself.
Clayburn was fairly sure that Adler would now have to concentrate on a number of problems that had been suddenly dumped on him. It was going to take time just to remove that ledge barrier so they could continue north. Clayburn was hoping that Adler would try piling as much of his dumped freight as could be salvaged on his remaining wagons. Getting that freight up from the bottom of the pass would delay Adler still further. And the extra weight would slow his mules considerably.
What with one thing and another, Adler wasn't likely to be troubling them again between here and Bannock.
***
Cora's wagon train was three days from Bannock when it ran into a blizzard that lasted almost the entire day.
If it had happened while they were farther back in the mountains, still climbing through some of the difficult stretches, it would have stopped the wagons. And they would have stayed stopped for the whole winter.
But by the time the blizzard hit, the rest of the pass between them and Bannock was level, over fairly even ground. The next day they were able to get moving again, and keep moving. The deep snow cost them another day, but they managed to get through.
When they reached Bannock it didn't appear to have been worth the trouble. Just dirty tents and ramshackle log huts clustered in a notch in the mountains-with a sprinkling of more of the same on the slopes. As they entered the wide track of churned up mud and snow that served as Bannock's main street, they saw there were only two wooden structures of any size in the whole place. The first they passed was a saloon. The second they came to was a general store.
By the time they pulled to a halt in front of the general store they knew that, despite appearances, Bannock was bursting with wealth. Ragged, filthy miners crowded around the wagons. They yelled for clothes, flour, sugar, tools…
And they offered gold for what they demanded.
They would have stormed the wagons but for the teamsters quickly taking up positions with their rifles to stop the rush. Clayburn, directing them, found that Blue was gone.
The old man had been with them, riding drag, when they'd come into Bannock. Now he was nowhere in sight. Clayburn glanced back the way they'd come-to the big saloon at the other end of the mining camp.
The man who came out of the general store to meet Cora was as eager as the miners. He quickly assured her she'd do better to sell in bulk to him than piecemeal to the miners; warned her that her freight wouldn't be safe till it was in his store where it could be more easily guarded; and invited her to discuss the terms of the deal inside. Clayburn didn't think much of the man's chances of outdealing Cora. She was smiling at the man too innocently.
Before going into the store, she turned to Clayburn. "Mind finding out if whoever owns that big saloon back there is interested in buying some decent liquor? Tell him I've got a whole wagon full."
"How much'll you want for it?"
"Tell him I'll discuss terms with him myself, when he gets here."
Clayburn smiled admiringly at her. "You mean you still don't trust me?"
Her dark eyes were warm as they met his. "You know I do," she told him softly. "Just not where money's concerned."
With that she went into the general store. Clayburn shook his head, still smiling. Then he told his men to shoot anybody who tried to get closer to the wagons, and strode off to the saloon on the other side of Bannoc
k.
As he'd expected, Ranse Blue was at the bar, drowning what was probably not his first whiskey. The old buffalo hunter saw him come in and immediately got a defensive look. Clayburn went past the bar without speaking to him. He found the owner of the saloon and told him about Cora's wagonload of liquor. The man went out as fast as he could without running.
Clayburn turned to the bar, looking at Blue.
Blue glared at him. "I said I didn't drink on the trail. And I didn't. But we're not on the trail any more, are we?"
The corners of Clayburn's mouth turned up slightly. "Do you hear me complaining?" As he turned away he added, "I may be back in a little while. I could use a good drinking session myself." He went out of the saloon.
Adler stood there outside, facing him, less than twenty feet away.
Clayburn stopped, looking at the way Adler held his right hand, close by the gun holstered on his hip. "So you got here," he said evenly.
Adler nodded slowly. "Yes, I got here." His voice was quiet, rigidly controlled. "But my wagons didn't."
"Too bad. That's why we didn't use the pass you took. I figured some of those ledge trails'd become impassable if a real blizzard hit."
"You know what it does to me?" Adler went on, his voice beginning to be edged with his held-down fury. "It means I lose every cent I put into those wagons. They'll be stuck out there all winter. Indians'll pick them clean. You did that to me, by holding me up just long enough to get my wagons stuck in that snow. You've ruined me."
"You ruined yourself," Clayburn told him coldly. "If you hadn't wasted every body's time riding back and forth, trying to stop us, we'd both have got all our wagons here three-four days ago. Before the blizzard."
Adler wasn't listening. He said in the same tightly controlled, fury-driven voice, "I'm going to kill you. You know that."
Clayburn didn't believe it. Didn't believe Adler was the man to face him evenly, no matter how crazy with anger he was.
There was the blank wall of the saloon on Clayburn's right. He turned his head swiftly and looked to his left.
Wilks was there, standing in an opening between two brown-colored tents. His left arm was in a sling. There was a Colt in his right hand, pointing…
Clayburn twisted to face Wilks, swerving to one side as he brought his own gun up from its holster. He'd never drawn faster. He fired at Wilks as the gun cleared leather. Wilks' shot roared a hair's-breadth later.
A small black hole appeared in the middle of Wilks' forehead, the force of the bullet knocking his hat off. Clayburn felt an enormous blow against the right side of his chest that nailed him against the saloon wall. His right arm went entirely numb. His gun hand sank as he saw Wilks topple forward.
Sagging against the wall, desperately fighting the agony in his chest and the darkness squeezing his brain, Clayburn tried to bring himself around for a shot at Adler. He saw Adler's revolver coming up out of its holster, found his own gun had become too heavy to lift with his right hand. He fumbled for it with his left hand, couldn't seem to find it. Through blurred eyes he watched Adler leveling the revolver at him.
Ranse Blue fired his rifle from the saloon doorway. The bullet smacked into Adler just below the breast bone and drove him backward. The revolver spilled from his hand. He got a look of mild surprise on his face. Then death took over the expression of his features.
Through a mist Clayburn watched him fall. Then his own legs gave way. He slid slowly down the wall until his knees touched the ground. He stayed that way, still holding the Colt in his right hand, squinting wearily at the dark shapes that moved toward him through the mists.
***
Clayburn sat propped up on his bed in a log-walled room, playing solitaire on the blanket spread over his legs and lower torso. He handled his right arm awkwardly, keeping it away from the bulge of the bandages under his shirt. His face was paler, leaner. But the dullness was gone from his eyes.
Wind-whipped snow swept past the room's single window. It had been doing so for two days straight.
Clayburn placed a jack on a queen. The door opened part way and Cora Sorel looked in. "Oh… You're awake."
"You know I am," he said in a bored voice. "It's past time for our poker game. You promised to keep me amused, remember?"
She closed the door and came to the bed. "I was talking over a business deal with Feeney-the man who owns the big saloon."
"You're too damn money hungry. You could soothe your soul by spending more time with a sick man."
Cora looked at him gravely. "Dr. Judd says you're getting better fast. He expects you up and around in a couple more days."
Dr. Judd was actually a dentist who added to his income with doctoring and part-time bartending. But he'd gotten the bullet out, and Clayburn was still alive.
"A lot he knows," he grumbled. "I'm still weak as a baby. What's he predict about this blizzard?"
Cora sat on his bed, smoothly gathering up the cards into a deck. "The old-timers around here say we're all going to be stuck in Bannock for at least a month. Horses won't be able to get in or out until the snow packs down hard enough to travel on. That's the reason for my business discussion with Feeney this morning."
She shuffled the cards with a flowing motion of her slender fingers. "As long as we're going to be stuck here, I thought I might as well run my profits up a little higher. I've bought the gambling concession in Feeney's saloon. And since this is a rough place for a woman to run gambling on her own, I thought you might be interested in going partners with me."
She looked at him the way she had that night when they'd camped out alone together under the pines. "We make a good team," she reminded him softly, and began dealing out two poker hands.
Clayburn noticed that she was absent-mindedly dealing every other card from the bottom of the deck.
They smiled at each other.
It just might be, Clayburn agreed, an interesting way to spend a snowbound month.
Last Train to Bannock [Clayburn 02] Page 13
