Last Train to Bannock [Clayburn 02] Read Online Free PDF

more than race you. He'll try to stop you."
        She nodded, frowning. "He made that clear enough."
        "You'll need a man to take Farnell's place as wagon captain. You want to go along all the way to Bannock to make sure you're not cheated, and I can see your point. But it'll take a man to run things on that trail, make no mistake about that."
        She eyed him calculatingly. "Sounds almost like you want the job yourself."
        "I do."
        "Why?" Her voice was wary.
        Clayburn's lips thinned. "There's a man I want to meet again. He's likely to show up wherever Adler needs another killing job done for him."
        "That young redhead?"
        "Uh-huh."
        She thought about the story the marshal had told her of what Clayburn had done at the stage station: put that together with the way she read the look of him. She knew how to read men; she'd learned across a lot of poker tables. And in a number of situations that hadn't had anything to do with gambling.
        But there were certain practical considerations.
        "Being captain of a wagon train requires experience."
        "I have it," he told her flatly. "Ran a few supply trains through to the posts in Arizona Territory when I was scouting for the army. Don't worry, I can handle the job."
        Cora Sorel's dark eyes regarded him with some surprise. "Gambler, army scout, wagon captain… You've had a varied life. Anything else you've done?"
        Clayburn shrugged. "This and that. I get restless."
        She made up her mind. "All right. The job's yours."
        "Good." Clayburn's long, lean fingers drummed softly on the table as he focused on the problems ahead. "How many wagons have you got?"
        "Eight."
        "How about men to drive them?"
        "I've got six teamsters. Men who worked for Harry Farnell pretty regularly. All good men, according to him. In the morning you can help me hire the other two we'll need."
        "If those two men Adler had with him are samples of his crew," Clayburn said, "it'll take more than mule-skinners to get your wagons through. We'll need some men to ride guard. The right kind of men."
        Cora Sorel nodded. "I've been giving that some thought."
        "Anyone in mind?"
        "Not yet."
        "All right, then. I'll hunt around and see what I can find."
        "Subject to my approval," she told him firmly.
        "Fair enough."
        They talked money. She didn't have much left, and the wages she could offer were not exceptional. But she compensated with the size of the bonus she was willing to pay each man after the freight was sold in Bannock.
        "I'd like an advance on my wages," Clayburn said after they'd settled the matter.
        Coral Sorel opened the handbag on her lap. counted fifty dollars onto the table. "Enough?"
        "It'll do. Care to play some poker?"
        An hour later, in her room on the top floor of the hotel, Clayburn pushed the last of the fifty dollars she'd advanced him across the table to her.
        "You play mighty slick poker." Nothing in his face or voice betrayed that he'd discovered the tiny notches on the brand new cards, where she'd marked them with her thumb nail while dealing.
        "I've had a lot of practice," she said with just a glint of humor in her dark eyes.
        A corner of Clayburn's mouth quirked. "Looking good enough to eat helps, too. Takes a man's mind off the game." It had certainly taken his mind off it. Usually he sat down to poker in a naturally suspicious frame of mind. Only the heady effect of being alone in the softly lit bedroom with her had kept him from feeling those markings for so long.
        She smiled at him. "I was told that, long ago, by a riverboat gambler. It's what started me on my career. Are you quitting?"
        "Not if you'll advance me another fifty dollars on my wages."
        Cora Sorel shrugged. "It's your money." She pushed over the fifty she'd won