Last Train to Bannock [Clayburn 02] by Marvin H. Albert

that."
        Clayburn's face softened. "I shouldn't have shown you so much of myself in that poker game last night. Now you don't trust me."
        "I told you before, I don't trust anybody all the way." She put her hand on his arm exactly as she'd done with Haycox, and her eyes were warm on his. "It's nothing personal, Clay. Just a leftover of some unpleasant experiences in the past."
        She was, Clayburn reflected, as used to gentling men as a mustanger was to gentling horses.
        As they walked together toward the freight office down by the railroad tracks, Cora asked him, "Have you managed to find any other men for us?" She glanced at his bruised face. "Or weren't you in any shape to?"
        Clayburn told her about the three men he'd turned up.
        She liked the sound of Jim Roud and Kosta, but was leery about Ranse Blue. "He sounds too old for the kind of trip we're likely to have."
        "He'll stand up to it as well as any of us. Blue's one of those that toughen with age. And he's spent years dodging hostiles in open country. Just the kind of man we'll need. Somebody that can keep an eye on what Adler's outfit is up to without being spotted."
        Cora Sorel finally accepted his choice, though reluctantly.
        Behind the small adobe building housing Farnell's freighting office there was a warehouse for freight storage, an adobe-walled yard holding the wagons, and a corral in which the mules and horses were kept. Eleven men were gathered waiting in the yard between the big Murphy wagons. Six were the freighters who'd worked steadily for Farnell in the past-the kind of rough, violent-looking men you usually found in jobs like that. Men who could be hard to handle on occasion, but would be just as hard to scare.
        The other five had showed up hoping for a job.
        Cora Sorel let Clayburn do the talking. He told all of them what they faced, holding nothing back-the kind of country they'd have to cross, the blizzards in the mountains, the Apaches, the likelihood of interference from Adler's outfit. The six regulars heard him out with a stoic boredom, not budging, but one of the other five shrugged and walked away, looking sheepish.
        Clayburn questioned the remaining four, rejected one because he'd never handled mule teams before, another because he appeared nervous and didn't ask about the pay. Clayburn had a hunch Adler had sent him.
        If the two Clayburn hired-O'Hara and Fischman-had nerves they didn't show them. Both were big, solid men; the former was ex-army and the latter had once ridden shotgun for the Butterfield Stage. Both were well acquainted with mules.
        Clayburn went over the wagons with the eight of them. There were fifteen wagons, reminders of the time before Farnell had gone bust, when he'd sometimes run as many as twenty in one train. But some of them were now badly in need of repair. They selected the eight in best condition. Leaving the teamsters to prepare the wagons and select their mule teams, he returned to the office and got from Cora a hundred-and-fifty dollar advance on Kosta's wages. Then he left to bail out Kosta and collect Jim Roud and Ranse Blue.
        As he went up the street he met Haycox strolling toward the office.
        They passed each other without speaking.
        
***
        
        Marshal Kavanaugh made no fuss about losing his deputy. "Roud's been acting so itchy lately," he told Clayburn, "he'd've been sure to've got himself in trouble before long. And I'd have to bring him in and lock him up, badge or no badge. But you let him ride some of the wildness out of himself and you'll have a pretty good man on your hands."
        And he was more than pleased to be able to release Kosta, though sorry that Parrish was losing a good cook.
        Leaving the jail, Clayburn sent Kosta to the Farnell Freight Company headquarters to get his chuck wagon ready. He took ex-deputy Jim Roud along with him to hunt