Novel 1959 - Taggart (V5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  “Why did Adam go to Fort Bowie, that time?”

  Consuelo turned, her dark eyes flashing. “Because he was afraid! He was afraid Tom Sanifer come back!”

  “Maybe not,” Miriam replied.

  “I do not care,” Consuelo replied, “I want to go. I am ’fraid. Every day I am afraid, and every night. If Adam will not take me, I will go alone. Or,” her eyes flashed, “I get Señor Taggart to take me!”

  Miriam felt her spine stiffen with a sharp anger, but she did not turn around. Her back was to Consuelo and she kept it that way, but deep inside her there was a terrible sinking feeling. She knew what effect Consuelo had on men, for she had seen it, and none of them were indifferent to her, or could be indifferent. She had a fine body, and those magnificent eyes, and she knew how to appeal to men.

  “Why do you think he stayed?” Consuelo said. “You think it was because of you?”

  Miriam remembered the quiet talk in the darkness and suddenly she knew she loved Swante Taggart. It was nonsense … how could she love a man she scarcely knew? But out there in the night there had been something, some meeting between them. Yet how could that be, when he had not even seen her then?

  “I think he stayed because he wanted to stay,” Miriam replied evenly. “I think he will go when he wishes to go, but I do not believe he will take another man’s wife.”

  “Hah!” Consuelo snorted. “You think so? You fool, you.”

  SWANTE TAGGART WALKED away from the house. He carried a rifle, field glasses, and canteen and he went up the canyon back of the chapel where the canyon walls seemed to shoot straight up toward the sky. Then he began to climb over boulders, and twice had to pull himself up sheer faces eight or ten feet high. Presently he left the canyon and climbed out on the side.

  He was well up, southeast of Rockinstraw, and with a good view of the country except where it was cut off by the bulk of Rockinstraw itself. Seating himself in the shade of a thick cedar, he put his rifle across his lap and got out the glasses. For an hour he studied the terrain.

  It was a good place to hide.

  Swante pushed his hat back on his head and rolled a smoke, his eyes squinting as he looked around. North of him lay the country he had crossed to get here, and south of him he believed he could almost detect a thin trail of smoke that might be Globe … in this clear air a man could see a long way.

  Nowhere was there any sign of Adam Stark or his workings. Probably he was deep in a canyon some place, and well out of sight.

  His thoughts returned to the two girls. That Mexican girl now … that was a lot of woman. There was something going on he did not understand, and apparently Stark had told neither of them that he had killed this Sanifer. Could be why he had rushed them away into the desert, so they would not hear.

  Miriam had not seemed upset over it … she had even seemed pleased, so she couldn’t have been the woman.

  But she wouldn’t have been. Miriam was the kind of girl who would go with a man if she wanted to, and not be ashamed of it, but he’d have to be quite a man. She was a proud one … but all woman, too.

  A chaparral cock ran across the slope before him, stopping to flip a tail at him and eye him inquisitively. Overhead a buzzard soared against the sky, and in the distance, over the mountains, billowing black clouds were piling up. The drought had been long … it was one of the driest years in some time, and a good rain would put water along the trails. And it would erase, once and for all, any tracks he might have left.

  Even here, only a few yards from the rim of the canyon of the chapel, he could scarcely see it. The padres had chosen their hiding place very well indeed.

  But Swante Taggart was not safe, and he was not free. He knew better than to relax and forget his situation. Pete Shoyer was not likely to give up a chase that would prove so profitable. Even if for a time he took on something else, it would only be to return to the pursuit of Taggart when time allowed.

  Taggart got up and moved across the slope, ignoring the sharp warning of a rattler a dozen feet off the trail. The snake was coiled in the shade where he had better be … a few minutes of direct sunlight in such heat as this would kill any rattlesnake.

  Twice rabbits started up … he would set some snares away from the canyon. Once he saw deer tracks.

  He caught a slight movement on the hill below him and stood still until he identified it as Consuelo. She had a hand-woven basket and was collecting seeds or something from desert plants. She moved with easy grace, like an Indian girl, but he could see she was wary. Suddenly, he was sure she was aware of his presence. Had she seen him first?

  The thought was not a comfortable one to a man who must survive by never being seen first if he could avoid it, and he settled down to watch her.

  There was an animal grace about her, and when he had looked into her eyes the night before there had been a challenge there. This was quite a woman … but she was also a danger.

  He lifted his eye to the far slope of the mountains but saw nothing. Slowly his eyes moved around the hills, seeking out every possible way of travel, searching for any indication of movement. The clouds were building higher … it might actually rain.

  He got up in one swift, lithe movement and went down the hill toward Consuelo.

  She had turned her back on him but he knew she was aware of his coming. No stones rattled under his feet. He stepped lightly and easily. Even the Apache moccasins, which were harder of sole than the moccasin of the Plains Indians, allowed a chance to feel what was beneath the feet. An Indian never allowed his weight to come down on a branch or twig.

  Once, Swante Taggart paused to look around the country again. The buzzard still circled. There was a touch of wind in the air, a breath of cooling wind that smelled of rain. In the distance lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled in the far-off canyons and tossed great balls of sound back and forth among the peaks.

  He walked on down the slope of the mountain and paused near Consuelo. “You’d better get back,” he said. “There’s a storm coming.”

  “I like it.”

  The wind blew her skirt around her ankles and she lifted her head to the oncoming storm, letting it blow her black hair back from her neck and face. She wore a loose blouse that left her neck and smooth brown shoulders bare.

  Lightning flashed in the dark clouds in the west, and the wind touched the violin of the cedars and hummed softly among the spines of the cholla. Far away on the mountainside a gray veil of rain appeared briefly, then vanished as the brief shower died … a warning of what was to come.

  Taggart scanned the middle distance, searching for movement. The air was startling in its clarity, and the weirdly lit sky made the desert and the mountains seem strangely unreal, like some enchanted moonscape of crater and serrated ridge.

  They stood together in silence, drawn closer by the coming storm, rapt in their attention to the strangeness of the mountains. It would wipe out tracks … this he remembered, and praised the storm even when he was not sure what else might come of it.

  If Pete Shoyer was out there now he must be hunting shelter, but Taggart saw nothing, heard nothing.

  “It comes fast, I think,” Consuelo said, but she made no move to go. He stood quietly beside her.

  “You go soon?” she asked suddenly.

  “A few days, a week … maybe more. I do not know yet.”

  “You are lucky. I hate it here … I hate it!”

  Taggart made no reply, watching the black thunderheads billowing up in vast cloudy castles, ominous and threatening, and beneath them the advancing legions of the rain. “It is time to go,” he said, and taking her elbow started down the mountain.

  After a few steps the demands of the trail drew them apart, and he was careful not to come close to her again. They went down the slope, half-walking, half-running, excited by the oncoming storm and the hurry for shelter.

  Once, pausing for breath on a narrow ledge before starting down an edge of trail into the canyon itself, Consuelo turned her dark ey
es on him. “I think I go soon. I have feeling … if I stay here, I die here. I am ’fraid.”

  She went down the trail ahead of him, and with a last look around he hurried down into the canyon. When they reached the door of the stone house a few scattered drops were already falling, and as they ducked inside the rain swept down with a roar.

  These mountain rains, he knew, were usually swift and short, but sometimes they lasted longer. And where was Adam in all this fierce downpour?

  He had noted Miriam’s quick glance from one to the other as they rushed in the door. “What about Stark?” he asked. “Is there shelter out there?”

  “There’s a cliff dwelling not far off … just an overhang faced with rock, but it’s dry.” Miriam was busy at the fire. “He will be all right. Adam probably saw the storm coming before any of us.”

  “We were high up,” Swante Taggart said. “We saw nobody riding … not anywhere around.”

  He thought of the trail over which he had come. Whatever else happened, there’d be no tracks now for Shoyer, but how close was he? Had he trailed him as far as the Salt River? If he had, he would be close enough to observe movement in the country around, and he was a man with the patience of an Indian.

  Taggart sat down and Miriam placed a cup of coffee before him. He stared at it, thinking of Consuelo. There was no telling what she had in mind, but everything about her was a challenge to his maleness. Every move was provocative, every glance a testing of him. It excited him, but it worried him too, for his good sense told him how explosive the situation was. There was something between the two women that set a man’s teeth on edge … no declared war, but a guarded antagonism that he sensed with every instinct he had. As for Adam Stark, he knew those slow-smiling, quiet men. And he was in no position to invite trouble. The best he could get would be the worst of it.

  He had been a fool to stay, yet there was no way he could have gone on. The solution now was to get out, and fast. He made up his mind suddenly. When the storm was over, he was going to go.

  The roar of rain on the roof drowned the opening of the door, but the sudden brush of damp air turned Taggart sharply around.

  Pete Shoyer stood in the doorway and he had a hand on his gun.

  “Hello, Taggart,” he said.

  CHAPTER 7

  FOR AN INSTANT the tableau was frozen in silence. Pete Shoyer loomed square and black in the gray light of the doorway, his features indistinguishable. He seemed in that moment as solid and indestructible as a mountain boulder, as ominous as destiny itself. His sudden appearance from out of the storm, his featureless presence, the square blackness of his outline in the storm-darkened room was somehow shocking and terrible.

  Yet in that moment it was to Taggart that Miriam’s eyes went, and he stood very tall and still in the half-light of the room, at once ready and at ease.

  One wrong move could shatter the darkness of the room with the lightning flash of a gun battle, and Miriam heard herself speaking quietly. “Come in. We’ve coffee on.”

  “I don’t mind if I do.” Shoyer stepped into the room and his face showed clearly then, wide, dark, somber. He had large eyes that seemed to see everything at once. He was worn and stained, and on his shirt there was a stain of old blood. His slicker was open and the firelight caught the reflection of the brass cartridges in his belt, which glowed like golden teeth.

  Pete Shoyer moved into the room and coolly removed his slicker and hung it on a peg, his hat over it. Swante Taggart had moved slightly to face him as he changed position, but had said nothing.

  When he turned from the coat peg Shoyer looked at Taggart. “I’ve come to take you in, Taggart,” he said.

  “When you try,” Taggart’s voice was dispassionate, “I’ll kill you.”

  Shoyer showed his teeth in a wide smile. “Nobody has,” he replied, and then he said to Miriam. “You spoke of coffee, ma’am. I can use it.”

  Miriam, caught by the moment, the meeting of hunter and hunted, had forgotten the coffee. “Oh … yes.” She brought the pot to the table, and a cup.

  Shoyer drew back a chair and seated himself. “You’ve led me a chase.”

  “I don’t like to kill a man wearing a badge. I’ve worn one myself.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Shoyer gulped coffee noisily, then poured the hot coffee into his saucer and blew on it. “Need be no killing. You just come along quiet.”

  “We’ll decide that when the time comes.”

  Both turned their heads as the door opened and Stark came in. His smile was friendly, with a hint of irony. “I see you’ve met,” he said.

  He hung up his slicker and dried off his rifle barrel before racking it. “Had my rifle on you coming up the draw,” he told Shoyer. “I thought you were an Apache.”

  “You were behind me?” Shoyer did not like the idea.

  “All the way from the river.”

  Shoyer’s eyes swept the room, assaying the situation carefully, not sure what he had stepped into here. Suspicion was hot in his dark, slow eyes.

  Taggart made matters clear. “These people took me in, as they have you. What happens here concerns only you and me. I would not want you to make a mistake.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Taggart spooned honey into his coffee. “When this storm is over, why don’t you just ride out of here?”

  “You’re worth too much money to me, Taggart. Alive or dead.” He sipped coffee from the saucer and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Anyway, I can’t ride out. My horse broke a leg last night or I’d be in Globe by now.”

  “How did you find this place?” Stark asked.

  “Now that’s a coincidence,” Shoyer explained agreeably. “A man in my business makes a point of marking down in his memory such places where a man might hide. One time when I was scouting for the Army I almost fell into this canyon, but until I needed a place I had clean forgotten it.”

  “You stirred something up,” Stark said. “You’ve got the Apaches out and hunting. My advice is that nobody try to leave here until things simmer down. When they get out like this they prowl like hungry wolves, and I’ve the women to think of.”

  Shoyer tipped back in his chair. “Suits me.” He put a toothpick between his teeth. “Dry place to sleep, women folks to do for a man … can’t say I’d mind a rest.”

  Outside the rain pounded on the roof, and Consuelo had put a pot under a leak in the roof. Occasionally a huge drop fell into the water already gathered there, the sound loud in the silent room.

  Only a trickle of water ran down the floor of the canyon, and the presence of the buildings there after all these centuries indicated that there was rarely more at any time. A flash flood would have torn out the stable and damaged the other buildings. The deep canyons and washes that scarred the desert were carved out by just such flash floods that would run bank full for a few hours and then vanish. But in those few hours, or even in minutes, dams could be ripped out and homes destroyed.

  Swante Taggart watched the rain flooding past the window and rolled a smoke. From this moment he would have no rest, knowing Pete Shoyer’s reputation for bringing in his man, yet he was not excited or even worried. His years had taught him that each problem was to be met when it approached, and nothing was to be done about such situations until the moment for action. His problem now was simply to wait … and to be on guard for any sudden move that Shoyer might make.

  He had no fear of Shoyer. He had been shot at before this, and with luck he would come out of this to be shot at again. If not, he would be dead and it would not matter anyway. He was neither a fool nor an egotist, but he knew what he could do with a gun, and the years had keyed his muscles and mind for emergencies. He lived on a plane of readiness and awareness.

  He had never considered himself a gunfighter, and had never drawn a gun unless necessity demanded. He had tried to avoid gun trouble as a man avoids grass fires, stampedes, or flash floods, simply because it was the intelligent thing to do. At the same time, whe
n such troubles did come he believed they should be met head-on and moving in.

  Swante Taggart had never thought of himself as a brave man. The very word made him restless and irritable when it came into a conversation, as if men could be divided into the brave and the cowardly, as if brave men were always brave and the cowards always cowardly. It simply wasn’t that way. A man did what he had to do.

  Considering Shoyer, Taggart did not think of the man as either a good or bad character. The man hunted men. So he hunted men? If Pete Shoyer wanted to make a business out of hunting men, it was alright with Taggart. Some men hunted buffalo, some hunted wolves … hunting men was infinitely more dangerous. There were some who thought such conduct evil … Taggart himself did not.

  Perhaps there was something in Pete Shoyer that carried the hunting somewhat further than a man should go. Possibly he was too intent … Taggart was unconcerned about that. Whatever else he was, Pete Shoyer was a tough man who knew his business, and he would neither be trapped, tripped up, or tricked out of his prisoner by an ordinary ruse. If it came to shooting, Peter Shoyer would want the edge. But Taggart was pretty sure Shoyer would avoid a shoot-out.

  Not that Shoyer was afraid. It simply was not good business, for Shoyer might be wounded himself and unable to take his prisoner or pursue him. Shoyer was no reputation-proud kid, nor was he a tenderfoot. He was simply a man-hunter who was good at his job.

  Stark turned from the window and for an instant Taggart caught his face in the light and was struck by its tautness, something he had not observed before. As he watched Stark he realized the man had lost weight, his eyes seemed hollow. It was odd, for Stark seemed to be a bear for strength, one of those resilient men, hard and tough, who seem capable of enduring anything.

  Something was wrong, but it was not his domestic troubles. Studying the man, Taggart became thoroughly engrossed. During the brief period since his arrival in the canyon of the chapel there had been barely time to become acquainted, but Taggart was a sensitive man, aware as an animal of the subtle antagonisms of those around him. But this was something more, and it worried him because he sensed that Stark himself was worried.