Last Train to Bannock [Clayburn 02]

by Marvin H. Albert

  Ranse Blue grinned at him evilly. "I am finished. I just quit. Got me another job."

  Clayburn walked away, left the saloon, and went hunting for more likely candidates.

  He was passing a wide, deep-shadowed alley when a drunk came lurching up the boardwalk toward him. The drunk, wearing what looked like some prospector's cast-offs, was a man of medium height with short legs, a long torso and heavy, sloping shoulders. There was a long white scar between his upper lip and the base of his nose, like a mustache. He staggered head-down at Clayburn, who side-stepped closer to the mouth of the alley to avoid him.

  The scar-faced drunk appeared to trip over his own feet. He sagged into a low crouch as though to keep from falling on his face. Then, abruptly, he ceased to be a drunk. He swiveled around and launched himself straight at Clayburn. The top of his head rammed into Clayburn's middle and knocked him backward into the wide alley.

  Clayburn caught his balance quickly, his feet spreading slightly apart and his hands closing into fists. The scar-faced man straightened from his crouch and came after him. A thick, heavy arm snaked around Clayburn's neck from behind and dragged him deeper into the shadowed alley. A fist came from somewhere to his left and bounced off the side of his head. The scar-faced man surged in with both fists coming up for a clubbing blow at Clayburn's face.

  Clayburn's right leg came up hard, the heel of his boot thudding into the scar-faced man's chest and slamming him against the wall. He brought his foot back down and stamped on the foot of the man holding him from behind. At the same time he twisted his body, jammed his elbow back into the man's gut, grabbed one of his fingers and tried to break it. There was a gasp of pain, the thick finger was wrenched from his grip, and Clayburn was freed. He twisted ail the way around, striking out blindly. His fist sank deep into thick muscles and the man stumbled backward. Someone rammed all his weight low against the backs of Clayburn's legs. He hit the dirt face down, rolled fast. He was coming up on one knee when he saw who the other two men were by the faint light filtering down into the alley from a second-story window. They were Adler's bodyguards-the hulking bruiser and the lean, surly kid.

  It was then that he realized they weren't just a bunch trying to knock him out and rob him. He yelled as loud as he could as he came up on his feet. All three of them landed on him, their weight driving him back down, a hand clamping over his mouth to cut the yell short. Clayburn sank his teeth into flesh. There was a cry and the hand whipped away. Clayburn started another shout. A fist smashed into his mouth. Blood flowed back into his throat. He struggled against the weight of their bodies, his knee jamming into someone's hip, his left hand closing on a throat. Fists pounded his body and face. Hands clutched at his arms, trying to hold them.

  He managed to throw one man off, wrenched out of the grasp of another, fought his way up onto his knees. A boot kicked him in the temple. He sprawled on his back, consciousness ebbing for moment. They got his arms in that moment, one man on either side of him. pinning his arms to the ground. The hulking bruiser came down on Clayburn's stomach with both knees, knocking all the wind out of him. A fist like an anvil crashed down against Clayburn's head, triggering an explosion inside his brain.

  "Hold him!" the bruiser on top of Clayburn panted. "Hold him…"

  He raised another big fist like a club and swung it full force at Clayburn's face. With the bruiser's weight pinning him down, and the other two men holding his arms and tangling his legs inside theirs, all Clayburn could do was twist his head away from the blow. He twisted it, but not far enough. Heavy knuckles caught him behind the ear. His head seemed to swell up like a balloon.

  The fist went up again, came down.

  And again.

  Darkness swallowed him.

  FIVE

  Clayburn opened his eyes. The left one did not open all the way. But he could see out of both of them. Above him was a heavy-timbered ceiling. He gazed up at it thoughtfully. After a time he raised his hand and felt the area around his left eye. It was puffed, and very tender. His fingertips moved downward, traced the length of a strip of plaster on his cheek, and explored his nose. It was still in one piece. The fingertips went on to his mouth. His lips were swollen and torn. Some of the front teeth were loose, but none were missing. That surprised him. He let his hand fall back on the hard cot and wondered about it.

  Finally he rolled his head and looked to his right. There were iron bars running from floor to ceiling where a wall would have been. He was in the Parrish jailhouse, in one of the two cells formed by the bars behind the office.

  In the other cell a man was pacing back and forth as though trying to work off some of his excess energy. He looked like he had a lot to work off. He was very tall, more than a head taller than Clayburn, with a powerful, lanky build topped by the widest shoulders Clayburn had ever seen. His straight hair was pitch black, and his face might have been stolen from an Aztec statue carved out of dark granite.

  For a while, Clayburn just lay there watching the giant Aztec pace the confined limits of his cell. Gradually, strength and feeling seeped back into him. With it came the awareness that his entire body hurt and his head ached horribly. The man in the other cell came to a halt at his locked door. His great hands seized the bars and for a second he seemed to be considering tearing them open. Instead, he shut his eyes, leaned his forehead against a bar, and stayed that way.

  Clayburn turned his head toward the door to his own cell. It hung open. He tried to sit up, found that his abdomen muscles were too sore to help. Rolling on one side he got an arm under him, eased his legs off the cot, and forced himself to a sitting position. He got it done, but it tore a groan out of him.

  The man in the next cell turned his face slightly and looked his way. Then he raised his head and shouted through the bars, "Hey, marshal! Your guest just woke up!"

  He had a faint touch of Mexican accent.

  The rear door of the office opened and Marshal Kavanaugh came through and into Clayburn's cell. He regarded Clayburn clinically. "How do you feel?"

  "How do I look?"

  The marshal shrugged. "I've seen worse."

  "Then I guess I've felt worse. It's just that I can't remember when."

  Marshal Kavanaugh's smile flickered on, and off. "Doctor looked you over. Couldn't find anything broken; no permanent damage. But I admit you don't look the man you used to."

  Clayburn leaned back against the wall, exhausted by the effort of sitting. "How'd I get here?"

  "Your friends carried you."

  "Friends?"

  "The three that were beating up on you."

  Clayburn's eyes were dull. But in their depths something smoldered. "Nice of them," he whispered.

  "Not very. I was walking behind them all the way, with my hand on my gun."

  "You always manage to be in the right place at the right time?"

  Kavanaugh shrugged. "Sooner or later. Man passing by heard yelling in the alley, looked in and came running for me. I went over and called 'em off you. They said it was just a little fist fight, but I didn't like the odds. Three of them and you unconscious."

  Clayburn looked at the other cell. "Where're you holding them?"

  "I'm not. Hell, if I locked somebody up every time a man took a beating in this town, I'd need ten more cells. If it'd happened in the respectable section of town I'd fine 'em for disturbing the peace, but…"

  "All right," Clayburn cut in wearily. "I get the point. They say anything about why they jumped me?"

  "According to them, Slope was staggering drunk, bumped into you by accident and you played it tough, started to rough Slope up. So Benjy and Dillon jumped in to help him out."

  "Slope the one with the scar?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "He wasn't drunk."

  "Benjy-that's the big fellow-and Dillon, they say he was too drunk to defend himself against you. You can bring charges against 'em if you want, but it's your word against theirs, and to tell you the truth…"

  "Forget it." Claybu
rn shut his eyes against a wave of dizziness. He got hold of himself angrily, forcing his eyes open. They had a dazed, unfocused look. "Keep watch on Cora Sorel's room tonight," he said thickly, "or you may have worse than a beating on your hands. Those three work for a man named George Adler. He pressured her to sell her freight to him. She wouldn't, and she hired me as her wagon captain."

  "You saying that's why they jumped you?"

  "That's why." Clayburn had to concentrate to form each word. "If you hadn't warned me about making charges without proof, I'd bring up the subject of Farnell's murder, too. So keep an eye on her."

  The marshal scowled over it. Finally he nodded. "Okay. I can spare a deputy for it. It's a quiet night, the way nights go here in Parrish."

  "That's fine." Clayburn mumbled, and closed his eyes and let himself slide down the wall. He was asleep when his head touched the hard mattress.

  ***

  When he opened his eyes again daylight was streaming in through the small barred window of his cell. He felt slept out and his nervous system seemed to be functioning normally once more. Raising a hand to rub the last of sleepiness from his face, he winced at the tenderness around his left eye.

  "Good morning," a voice said.

  Turning his head, he saw it was the giant Mexican with the Aztec face. He was now sitting on the edge of the other bunk in Clayburn's cell. Puzzled, Clayburn raised up on his elbow and looked at the other cell. Both bunks there were occupied by sleeping men and three more were curled up on the stone floor.

  The Mexican glanced over his shoulder. "Got too crowded in there. Two of 'em got caught breaking into a general store. One's just a cowhand that got liquored up and made a pass at a respectable woman over in the residential section. The other two're his buddies that tried to stop the marshal from locking him up. Had to be pistol-whipped and carried in."

  The Mexican turned his expressionless dark face back to Clayburn. "So the marshal moved me in here with you. Hope you don't mind. My name's Kosta."

  "Don't mind at all." Clayburn shoved his legs off the bunk and sat up, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees to ease the stiff soreness in his midsection.

  "Feeling better?" Kosta asked him.

  "I'll do." Clayburn looked toward his cell door. It was still open. "Seems like the marshal trusts you."

  "I promised to stay put," Kosta said, as if that were explanation enough.

  "What're you in for?"

  "Breaking up a saloon," Kosta told him, gently and regretfully. "And some arms and legs and noses." He smiled apologetically. "I was drunk, you see? Or I'd never have done anything like that. The marshal could tell you that. He knows I'm no trouble-maker. But I was drunk, and some man made a remark about Mexicans."

  Kosta thought back on it. "I don't remember who said it, or what it was he said, to tell you the truth. But they say I threw him across the saloon and smashed the back-bar mirror with him. Then it seems all these friends of his jumped me." He shook his head sadly. "I did a lot of damage. Breakage and doctor bills and my fine came to three hundred and twenty dollars. I'd spent every cent I had on the liquor and couldn't pay it, so they sentenced me to thirty-two days-one day for every ten dollars."

  Clayburn eyed him calculatingly. "You go on tears like that very often?"

  "I sure don't. Last time I did anything like that was more'n two years ago. And I ain't likely to do it again. I'm going crazy, shut up in here like this."

  The rear door of the marshal's office opened. A deputy came into their cell carrying a pot of steaming coffee and a tray with cups and fat rolls on it. He was a compact, wiry blond in his middle twenties, with a cheerfully ugly, pug-nosed face. "Fresh rolls," he announced as he sat down beside Kosta. "Bakery round the corner just fished 'em out of the oven." He set the tray on the floor between the bunks and grinned at Clayburn. "You look pretty fit for a man's just took a bad licking. My name's Jim Roud. I'm in charge around here for the marshal, daytimes. So anything you need…"

  "All I need's some of that coffee."

  "Don't we all." Deputy Roud began pouring into the three cups.

  One of the men in the other cell sat up and whined, "Hey-how about some of that over here?"

  "Shut up and wait!" Roud answered without looking around at the man. "Regular breakfast don't come in for another half hour."

  Clayburn raised his cup to his lips. The coffee scalded going down, but he gulped all of it greedily and refilled his cup before picking up one of the warm rolls. As he ate it and sipped at his second cup, he studied Kosta.

  "Ever handled mule teams, by any chance?"

  The Mexican shook his head, swallowed the chunk of roll he'd been chewing. "Only horses. I've been a blacksmith. But mostly I'm a cook."

  "Best in town," Roud said. "Before you pulled that one-man riot." The deputy looked to Clayburn. "Took five of us to bring him down. He nearly tore my arm off, doing it."

  "I don't remember it," Kosta murmured. "You know I wouldn't do a thing like that sober."

  "Done any trail cooking?" Clayburn asked.

  "Sure. For some of the cattle outfits."

  "Any good with a rifle?"

  Kosta shrugged a massive shoulder. "Like most everybody. Why?"

  "I'm running a string of freight wagons up to Bannock. We still need a couple drivers and guards-and a cook." Clayburn glanced at the deputy. "How many more days has he got to serve?"

  "Fifteen."

  "At ten dollars a day that means he still owes the town a hundred and fifty dollars, right?"

  Jim Roud nodded.

  Clayburn turned back to Kosta. "I might be able to persuade my boss to pay the rest of your fine for you-as an advance on wages. If you're interested."

  Kosta looked at him as though he were his long-lost father. "Interested? I'd crawl all the way to Bannock for a chance to get out of here."

  "We're expecting trouble all along the way," Clayburn warned.

  "What kind?"

  "Snow-if the blizzards hit before we reach Bannock, we could get stuck in the mountains and freeze to death. Apaches-we'll be cutting through hostile territory. And another outfit that's gonna try to stop us from reaching Bannock, or at least to keep us from getting there first."

  He touched a long finger to the plaster stuck on his cheek. "They play rough."

  "You don't know what rough is," Kosta rumbled, "till you been stuck in a little cell long as I have. Get me out of here and you've got a cook. And I can handle a rifle. Damn good."

  Jim Roud was looking thoughtful. "Those guards you were saying you needed… What kind of wages you paying?"

  Clayburn told him about the wages and bonus arrangement. "Why? You know somebody good that'd be interested?"

  "Yeah." Roud's ugly face creased in a smile. "Me."

  Clayburn eyed the deputy over the rim of his cup. ' 'Tired of being a lawman?"

  "Kind of. This town life's beginning to bore me. Been a cowhand most of my life. Was, till Kavanaugh talked me into signing on as his deputy. Sounded like action so I took it on. But he's got this town so tamed there's hardly any excitement any more."

  "You'll get all you want with us," Clayburn told him. As far as he was concerned, any man good enough to work for Kavanaugh was good enough for him. Cora Sorel had estimated that she could afford, besides Clayburn, three extra men to act solely as guards. The old buffalo hunter and Jim Roud made two.

  "You're hired," he told Roud. "Any other of Kavanaugh's deputies itching for action and open spaces?"

  "I'll ask around."

  But when Clayburn met Cora Sorel an hour later, he found that the other guard had already been hired.

  Cora Sorel was coming down off the porch of the hotel when Clayburn got there. This morning she was dressed in a trail outfit-a split riding skirt, boots, sheepskin jacket and a flat, wide-brimmed hat. It was quite a change from what she'd worn the night before, but she still looked good to Clayburn.

  The man with her didn't.

  He was about Clayburn's he
ight and age, but much slimmer, with long, delicate hands. There was a withdrawn, deadly quality to the man, something that emanated from the almost womanish grace with which he moved, the contemptuous set of his thin mouth, the empty expression of his thin face and eyes like dirty ice.

  Clayburn knew the breed and disliked it instinctively. A killer. He couldn't be anything else.

  SIX

  Cora stared with shock at Clayburn's face. "What happened to you?"

  "Three of Adler's crew happened to me." He told her about it briefly.

  "Are you all right now? Will you still be able to…"

  "I'm fine," he told her flatly, looking at the man with her.

  Cora introduced them. The man's name was Matt Haycox. They eyed each other and nodded slightly, neither man offering his hand.

  "Matt and I know each other from before," Cora told Clayburn. "He kept order in a gambling house in Butte." She gave Haycox an admiring look that seemed to Clayburn to be contrived for effect. "And he certainly did keep order. I've hired him."

  "To do what?" Clayburn asked tonelessly.

  Haycox smiled faintly, but his eyes remained empty. "To keep order," he said in a voice as dead as his face.

  "As one of our guards," Cora added. "He can handle a gun better than any other man I ever saw.

  Clayburn held down his irritation. "Has she told you I'm wagon captain?" he asked Haycox. "That means you'll have to take orders from me."

  "She told me," Haycox drawled.

  "All right, then take yourself a walk. Miss Sorel and I have things to talk over."

  Haycox's thin mouth grew thinner. He looked to Cora.

  She put her hand on his arm. "You go ahead. Matt. I'll see you at Farnell's freight office at noon."

  Haycox's eyes slid back to Clayburn, held for a moment. Then he drifted away.

  Cora turned to Clayburn. "You deliberately tried to offend him. Why?"

  "I don't like him," Clayburn said simply.