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

more comfortable that way."
        "Comfortable?"
        "And safer. It's only the things you don't worry about that can hit you when you're not looking."
        He shook the marshal's hand and went back out to the wagons.
        "All right… Roll 'em!"
        

EIGHT
        
        They ate early and they ate well. Kosta proved to be as good a cook as he'd been said to be. By the first faint light of dawn Clayburn had Cora's wagon train on the move, proceeding northwest into rough desert country.
        Kosta's chuck wagon, pulled by two teams of horses, moved out in the lead, followed by the eight mule-drawn freight wagons. Like each of the teamsters, Kosta had a gun strapped to his hip, a rifle close to hand, and extra ammunition for both behind the seat. Roud and Haycox rode off to either side of the wagon train as flankers, one 'or the other of them occasionally dropping back past the last wagon for a look over the horizon behind them. Cora Sorel, riding a fleet-footed buckskin with the sure grace of someone born to the saddle, acted as an extra flanker. She carried a Winchester in her saddle scabbard and a Colt
.44 on her hip, and before many days had passed it was evident she was as equal to hard traveling as any of the men.
        Ranse Blue was gone before they set out that first day, riding off into the predawn darkness, leading an extra horse so he could alternate mounts for speed if necessary. No one saw much of him in the days that followed. Clayburn had given the old buffalo hunter the job of spying on Adler's outfit. About every other night Blue would reappear, have himself a hot meal, fill his canteens and food bag, report to Clayburn, and be gone again well before dawn.
        Clayburn rode point, well in advance of the wagons, scouting the way. From time to time he'd ride a full circle around the wagon train, out of sight of it, scanning the distances through his army-issue field glasses. He returned to the wagons only for the midday halts and when they made camp for the night. He chose and arranged each campsite with an eye to defense, corralling the horses and mules securely within a box formed by the wagons, assigning guard duties so that there were always at least three out in the dark beyond the campfire light, watching and listening for the first signs of an attack.
        Not that he was expecting trouble this early. But it was well to get everyone in the habit of being set for it from the start. Because he'd been looking for them, Clayburn had soon found tracks which indicated that riders from Adler's outfit were keeping tabs on Cora's wagon train, just as Blue was on Adler's.
        Blue's first reports back were what Clayburn had anticipated. Adler was following a longer route across the desert country-a route determined by the known watering places along the way. Clayburn had chosen a more direct, much shorter route-but one that had to cross a couple of problems. The first problem was a three-day stretch across country that wasn't supposed to contain any water. The second problem was a long east-to-west expanse of rolling sand dunes in which the legs of the mules and wheels of the wagons might become too deep mired to get through.
        They hit the three-day dry stretch a week out of Parrish. In readiness for it, Clayburn had had a huge cask of water secured on top of each wagon load. The mules and horses drank every last drop of it their first night into the dry stretch, but Clayburn did not appear anxious about it. He led the wagon train, an hour before dusk of the following day, to what everyone knew to be a dry lake.
        It was a place where there'd once been water, fed by some underground spring which had suddenly stopped flowing several years back.
        But the lake was no longer dry, as Clayburn had discovered a week and a half earlier while riding south, the day before his horse had broken a leg. As mysteriously as the underground spring had shut