Last Train to Bannock [Clayburn 02] (14 page)

BOOK: Last Train to Bannock [Clayburn 02]
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    Clayburn began working his way upward, the carbine gripped tight in his right hand. He found a tight, jagged seam in the face of the rock leading upward, and used it. He climbed slowly, careful to make no sound. The way became steeper, and he had to seek holds for his feet, his free hand and his right elbow, slowing his progress still more. Hauling himself up that way, having to hang on to keep from falling, he was sharply conscious of how defenseless he'd be in the vital first split second if the Apache spotted him.
    Relief flowed through him when he finally reached the upper end of the seam. He rested on a narrow little ledge under a massive shoulder of rock, breathing through bared teeth till the action of his lungs became less violent. Then he wiped sweat from his eyes and surveyed the jungle of rock formations around him.
    The Apache should be somewhere to his left now. perhaps a bit higher or lower, but close. Clayburn got his feet under him and started working his way to the left, crouching so low that his chest almost touched his knees. He placed his feet with care so as not to set any of the snow shifting downward to betray his position. He came to a twisted stone pinnacle that barred his way, began moving around it under a high ledge.
    A dusting of snow fell on his hat and shoulders.
    Clayburn whipped part way around, his right foot scraping on bared rock under it, his carbine smacking to his shoulder as he brought it up to fire at the ledge above.
    There was nothing up there but a slight stirring of wind.
    Clayburn had barely started to turn back to his original position when the Apache materialized three feet in front of him. The Apache stepped out from the other side of the stone pinnacle, bringing his rifle around for a point-blank shot at Clayburn as he made the step.
    There was no time for Clayburn to bring his own carbine to bear. In the same instant that the Apache appeared he instinctively did the only thing left to him. He wrenched himself forward and around to his left, swinging the carbine in a swift, vicious arc like a club, getting all the power of his shoulders behind it. The barrel of the carbine thudded against the side of the warrior's neck.
    The boom of the Apache's rifle and the sound of his neck snapping as he was knocked sideways against the pinnacle came together. Hot lead seared skin from Clayburn's side three inches below his armpit. The Indian crumpled like a puppet with all its strings cut.
    Clayburn stared down at the Apache's inert form with a blank look on his face, breathing harshly, dizziness swirling in his head.
    It lasted only seconds, then it was over. His brain steadied, and legs that had begun to tremble ceased to do so. Clayburn relaxed his grip on the carbine and straightened, looking out and down at the land below.
    Roud's death had been avenged. But too soon, before the Apache had led him to the rest of his bunch.
    Still-there was a possibility. He gazed thoughtfully at the stream below. His Apache had followed the stream this far. And the band he belonged to was likely to be camped near water. It would be dark in a little over an hour. Unless he and Blue had been wrong about how close the Apache party was likely to be…
    Clayburn made his way back down. He found Roud's horse and took him along, releasing the Indian pony to wander off. He wasn't worried about the other Apaches finding it or their dead companion. By then the tracks leading back toward Cora's wagons would have been long obliterated. Mounting his sorrel and tugging Roud's horse along by a lead rope, he continued to follow the upward course of the stream. He rode warily, knowing it was more than an even chance the rifle shot had been heard by other Apaches.
    He was a half hour's riding north of the Apache he'd killed when he saw a tendril of smoke rising ahead. Instantly turning away from the stream, Clayburn rode into a stand of pine. Hidden within the timber, he pushed on in the same direction. It was murky under the heavy overhanging boughs, and Clayburn let his horse go slowly, feeling its way around tangles of underbrush.
    When the trees began to thin out on a steeply rising incline, the smoke was on Clayburn's left, between him and the stream. He kneed his horse up the slope. Higher up the timber became sparse and stunted, the incline became irregular with big sharp upthrustings of rock. Clayburn reached the top of the slope between two of the rock thrusts-and found himself looking down at the Apache camp.
    It was near the stream, a rough, temporary resting place with two slapdash shelters fashioned of pine and balsam boughs leaning against stakes sticking up out of the ground. One Apache warrior was carrying wood past the ponies to a newly built cook fire. Clayburn counted the other men. There were no women. He counted eleven warriors in all.
    From the absence of women, and the young, fit look of each warrior, and the transient nature of their camp, they were a raiding party, out for blood and loot. But Clayburn doubted that they'd try any full attack on Cora's wagons, even if they chanced to find them. They might try sniping, though they would have nothing to gain by it but enjoyment. But as long as no wagon fell behind, and no man strayed away as Roud had done, they were likely to leave the wagon train alone. It had too many men, and with every teamster armed the numerical odds were too even. Judging from the size of the two shelters, even if all the raiding party weren't in the camp at the moment, there couldn't be more than a couple others-not including the one he'd killed.
    Apache warriors gambled with their lives. But like all sensible gamblers they preferred the odds to be at least slightly in their favor before staking everything. Still they
could
make trouble if they happened to discover the wagon train.
    Clayburn was about to turn away when another Apache climbed into view over the crest of a ridge off to the right. At the same moment the newcomer looked over and spotted Clayburn.
    The Apache yelled his warning to the camp below as Clayburn whirled his sorrel around, tugging Roud's horse after him. Cora's wagon train was off to the west. Clayburn raced to the east, toward the other pass.
    He hadn't gotten far before he heard Apache ponies coming after him.
    
FOURTEEN
    
    Ranse Blue picked the campsite for Cora's wagon train as dusk closed in. They were in a wide, level stretch of the pass now. Blue chose a place against a high, perpendicular cliff, with no timber or sizable rocks close enough to be used by night attackers. Kosta quickly saw to getting the evening meal ready, so that he'd be done with the cooking before full dark. There'd be no fire to reveal their position that night, or in the nights that would follow.
    As the mules and horses were corralled within the square of wagons Cora stood by the cook fire, gazing anxiously to the east. "Why isn't Clay back yet?" The question was more of an expression of her fears than a query directed at Blue. "He should have come back by now…"
    "Most likely he found that Apache," Blue said, with more gentleness than he ever used with any of the men, "and decided to trail him."
    "But we need him here."
    "We need to know where the rest of them Apaches are, and how many, too."
    "Then what about Jim Roud?… He hasn't come back either."
    "Could be he went along with Clayburn," Blue lied, "to help in case he ran into trouble."
    Kosta glanced up at Blue, saying nothing but knowing as well as Blue that it wasn't so.
    Cora knew it, too. When she settled down in her bedroll that night after the meal she was thinking of Roud's cheerfully ugly face. And she found herself thinking of him already as someone in the past, not as someone who still lived.
    Weariness made her fall asleep in spite of her thoughts. But it was a restless, troubled sleep.
    Blue assigned the three-man guard duties for the night, and picked with forethought the position from which each guard would stand his watch. There was one natural advantage to the situation of that night's camp. No one could get at them directly from either steep-walled side of the pass. Any night attack would have to come through the pass behind them, or ahead of them…
    When Haycox was wakened for his turn at guard duty shortly before midnight, he saw that it was still snowing. He picked up his rifle and moved through the darkness to take up his position, the last vestige of sleepiness quickly left behind, his mind sharply alert as he reviewed his plans.
    He'd thought them out nights ago, after Cora had made it obvious that she found him repulsive, that she'd played him for a sucker back there in Parrish. He'd decided that night that he would switch sides and go over to Adler. But that was not all he had decided to do. And he'd waited patiently for the right situation.
    Now he had it. There were only two other guards beside himself tonight. And the falling snow would wipe out his tracks before anyone could start trailing him at dawn.
    Adler would pay him triple money for changing sides. But Haycox wanted more than that. And he was quite sure Adler would pay him more-much more-for having Cora delivered to him as a hostage.
    Haycox waited, watching the dark shapeless forms of the men sleeping on the ground by the wagons, giving the three men who'd just been relieved from guard duty time to get deep into their sleep. He knew the positions of the other two guards. He was fairly sure he could accomplish what he had to before either of them noticed. They weren't likely to be looking his way.
    Haycox allowed a half hour to go by. Then he left his guard position and slipped away in a low crouch toward the spot where he'd watched Cora bed down. He moved slowly and quietly, making no sound as he approached her. Coming to a stop a few feet away, he studied the way her dark form lay in the shadows, locating the position of her head just showing out of the blanket wrapped around her. Then he drew one of his Colts and closed in, bending over her. He raised the gun a few inches, then whipped it sharply against the side of her head.
    It was a controlled blow, not too hard. Just hard enough to knock her out instantly. She quivered, not coming out of sleep; then rolled on her back and lay still. Haycox had struck her with exactly the force he'd intended, neither more nor less. It wouldn't damage her much. She'd remain unconscious just long enough for him to get away with her.
    Crouching over her, Haycox took a careful look around, saw no sign that what he'd done had been seen or heard. Sliding the Colt back into its holster, he stripped the blanket from her. She'd gone to sleep fully dressed, even to her boots, like the rest of them. Haycox got his arms under her thighs and back, and lifted her from the ground.
    It was hard going, carrying Cora's inert weight. He was panting when he got her to one of the openings between the wagons. Putting her down on the ground by a wagon wheel, Haycox stood there for a few moments getting his breath back. Then he untied the ropes stretched between the two wagons. He slipped inside and walked his horse out, making as little noise as possible. His gear was close at hand where he'd placed it before bedding down. He saddled the horse with swift, efficient movements, slid his rifle into the scabbard.
    He was about to go in to get another horse for Cora when a voice said quietly behind him, "What the hell're you up to?"
    Haycox turned quickly, hand touching the gun on his right hip. It was one of the other guards, a teamster named Murchison. Haycox cursed himself for having become too preoccupied to notice his approach. But the teamster didn't act suspicious, only puzzled.
    "Think I saw something move back down the pass," Haycox told him softly. "I'm going for a look."
    "By yourself? You shouldn't…" The words trailed off as Murchison, glancing downward, saw Cora for the first time. "What the…"
    Haycox already had his gun in hand and was slashing it across the other man's temple. But Murchison's cry of surprise was out, too loud, before the gun barrel struck. Even as he fell dark figures were coming up off the ground by the wagons as men were jerked out of sleep by the sound, rising to their knees and feet.
    With the camp exploding awake around him, there was no longer time to get the other horse. Haycox bent quickly and grabbed up Cora's sprawled figure, slung her across his horse in front of the saddle. The next second he'd vaulted onto the horse and was racing away down the pass.
    He was out of sight before anyone in the camp could begin to find out what was going on.
    
***
    
    Clayburn rode into the other pass with the Apaches racing after him. He went across it pushing the sorrel hard all the way. The snow was getting deeper, and a couple of times the sorrel stumbled getting through heavy drifts. Once Clayburn almost had to let go of the rope that pulled Roud's horse along behind him. But he'd had a head start on his pursuers and the ground snow was slowing them, too.
    He reached the other side of the pass still beyond accurate range of the Apache rifles. Working up the timbered slope there, he sped on to the east, leading the Apaches off in the opposite direction from Cora's wagon train. He kept going due east until nightfall.
    With the coming of dark, Clayburn turned north, rode into a thick stand of timber, and drew to a halt. Minutes later he heard the sounds of the Apache ponies going past his hiding place, though he couldn't see them.
    He waited until the sounds faded out to the east of him. Then he climbed down from the run-out sorrel. Switching to Roud's horse and bringing the sorrel along by the lead rope, Clayburn rode out of the thick timber and struck toward the south.
    With the night, the falling snow, and the heavy overcast of cloud blotting out stars and moon, there was no danger of the Apaches finding his trail. And by dawn there'd be none of his tracks left in the area to tell them he'd changed direction.
BOOK: Last Train to Bannock [Clayburn 02]
12.23Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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