Last Train to Bannock [Clayburn 02] Read Online Free Page A

last time he'd seen her. It looked like a French import. It was cut modestly enough, but the material, its darkness matching her hair, clung softly to her curves, flaunting them. She had a figure that didn't need much help at flaunting itself.
        Cora Sorel looked up as he approached her table. Lustrous dark eyes took his measure, found him interesting.
        Clayburn took off his black hat, "Good evening, Miss Sorel. My name's Clayburn. I was around when your partner got himself killed."
        Her interest in him became more definite. "The marshal told me about you. That was quite a thing you did. Won't you join me for dinner?"
        "I'm broke."
        "My treat, then. Or would a woman buying you a meal offend your manliness?"
        "I don't know about my manliness, but my stomach wouldn't mind at all."
        As he seated himself across the table from her, a waiter came over. Cora Sorel ordered and passed the menu to Clayburn. She studied him as he ordered. When the waiter was gone she said, "Marshal Kavanaugh thinks you're a gambler. Are you?"
        He nodded. "And how have the cards been running for you , lately?"
        She leaned back a little in her chair, surprised. "You know me from some place?"
        "I saw you once a couple of years back in a gambling house in San Francisco. Bucking the biggest poker game in the place." He smiled at her. "As I recall, you were winning pretty steadily."
        Her beautifully curved lips quirked. "I usually manage to win more than I lose."
        "Uh-huh. A good-looking woman is a natural draw for the big-money suckers."
        She smiled at him more fully. "So we're both in the same line of business. How nice."
        "I heard you'd changed your line. Gone into freighting."
        "That's strictly a one-time thing. Harry Farnell made me a proposition too good to pass up." Her face clouded as she named her dead partner. "I've got almost every cent I've saved invested in a shipment coming in by train from St. Louis tomorrow. That was our deal. My money and Farnell's wagons, mule-teams and knowhow. Equal shares in the profits."
        "How does the deal stand with Farnell dead?" Clayburn asked softly.
        "The same. Except that it's going to be harder without him."
        "And the profits?"
        She stiffened just a bit. "I was to get half. That hasn't changed. Only now Farnell's share will be going to his family."
        Clayburn was silent, his greenish eyes on her face.
        She met his gaze directly. "That's one thing I never cheat on, Clayburn. I always pay what I owe."
        The waiter brought their food. Over the meal she told Clayburn about how she'd met Harry Farnell in St. Louis. He'd gone there to try buying a big shipment on credit, without success. A mutual acquaintance, a big cattle buyer who didn't seem to mind having lost a considerable amount to her over the poker table, introduced them. Farnell loosened up with her more than he might have with a man. He'd told her of the plan he had for recouping his business losses, if he could only get his hands on a big shipment of supplies.
        Farnell had just come from Bannock, up in the mountains some fifteen days riding northwest of Parrish. Shortly before he'd left there'd been a big gold strike there. Miners were pouring into Bannock by the hundreds-and the place was very short of supplies. It was already beginning to snow up there. In another few weeks, more or less, Bannock would be snowed in and it would no longer be possible to get freight wagons through to it.
        Anybody getting there with supplies before the big snows blocked the way would make a fortune. Every item brought in would bring twenty times its worth-in gold. With that kind of payoff as a reward, Farnell hadn't had to do much persuading to get Cora Sorel to sink her money into the venture as his partner. Outside of his cash shortage, he apparently had no troubles with