the Tall Stranger (1982)

by L'amour, Louis

  Rock Bannon looked up, and his eyes hesitated on Sharon's face, then swept on. "Because you're on the wrong side," he said simply.

  Sharon looked up and her eyes flashed. "But you were one of us," she protested. "You should be with us now. Don't you understand loyalty?"

  "I was never one of you after Mort Harper came," he said. Sharon flushed under his gaze. "Whatever I might have been, Harper took away from me. I ain't a smooth-talkin' man; guess I never rightly learned to say all I feel, but sometimes them that say little, feel a sight more."

  He put one hand on the latch. "As for loyalty, my first loyalty's to Hardy Bishop," he said.

  "But how could that be?" Sharon protested.

  "He's my father," Rock said quietly, then he stepped quickly and silently out the door.

  "His father!" Pagones stared after him. "Well, I'll be danged!"

  "That don't cut any ice with me," Mulholland said. "Nor his talk. I got the place I want, and I aim to keep it. Harper says there ain't any way they can drive us off. He says we've got guns enough to hold our own, and this canyon ain't so easy to attack. I'm glad it's comin' to a showdown. We might as well get it over."

  "All I want is to get to work," Collins said stubbornly. "I got a sight of it ahead, so if that Bishop aims to drive me off, I wish he'd come and get it over with."

  "All that talk about Harper usin' us," Satterfield said uneasily. "That didn't make sense!"

  "Of course not!" Cap said hotly. "Bannon was against everything we tried to do, right from the start. He just never had no use for Mort Harper, that was all."

  "Maybe there is something to what he says," Sharon interposed.

  Cap glanced around irritably. "Beggin' your pardon, Sharon. This is man's talk."

  "I'm not so sure," she flashed. "We women came across the plains with you. If we fight, my father may die; that makes it important to me. And if you think I'm going to stand by and let my home be turned into a shambles, you're wrong."

  Her father started to speak, but she stepped forward. "Bannon said Harper was using you. Well, maybe he is and maybe he isn't, but there are a few things I'd like you to think about, because I've been thinking about them.

  "Did Mort Harper look for this townsite? No, he rode right to it, and to me that means he had planned it. What affair was it of his which trail we took? Yet he persuaded us, and we came down here. Who got us to stay? Harper! I'll admit I wanted to stay, and most of us did, but I'm wondering if he didn't count on that. And what about those wagons of supplies that turned up at just the right time?"

  "Why, they just followed him on from the fort," Mulholland protested.

  "Did they?" Sharon asked. "Go up and look at the trail. Mary and I looked at it, and no wagons have come over it since we did. Anyway, would he let those wagons come across that Indian country without more protection than they had? Those wagons were already here, waiting for us. They were back up in a canyon northeast of the trail."

  "I don't believe that!" Collins said.

  "Go look for yourselves then," Sharon said.

  "You sound as if you're against us," Cap said. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

  "I'm on the side of the wagon train people, and you know it," she said. "But a lot of this doesn't look too good to me. The first day we were here I rode down in the valley with Mort, and he said something that had me wondering, something about taking it for himself."

  "Don't make sense," Cap said stubbornly. "Anyway, womenfolks don't know about things like this."

  Sharon was angry. In spite of herself, and knowing her anger only made Cap more stubborn, she said: "You didn't think there were any Indians, either. You took Mort's word for that. If it hadn't been for Bannon, we'd all have been killed."

  She turned quickly and went out of the cabin. Swinging into the saddle, she started across toward her own cabin. It was dark, and she could see the light in the saloon, and the lights in Collins's blacksmith shop, where his wife and little Davy would be waiting for him to return.

  Angry, she paid little attention where she was going until suddenly a horseman loomed in the dark near her.

  "Howdy!" he said, swinging alongside.

  From his voice and bulk, she knew him at once as Hy Miller, a big teamster who sometimes served as relief bartender. He had been drinking.

  She tried to push on, but he reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Don't be in no such hurry," he said, leering at her in the dimness. "I want to have a bit of palaver with you!"

  "Well, I don't want to talk to you!" she said angrily. She tried to jerk her wrist away, but he only tightened his grip. Then he pulled her to him and slid his other arm around her waist. She struggled, and her mare sidestepped, pulling her from the saddle.

  Miller dropped her, then slid from his own horse and grabbed her before she could escape. "I'll learn you a thing or two!" he said hoarsely. "It's about time you settlers were learnin' who's runnin' this shebang!"

  What happened next, Sharon scarcely knew. She was suddenly wrenched from Miller's arms, and she heard a crack of a blow, and Miller went down into the grass.

  "Run for the house!" It was Bannon's voice. "Quick!"

  Miller came up with an oath, and she saw him charge. Bannon smashed his left into the big teamster's mouth and staggered him, but the man leaped in, swinging with both hands. There was no chance for science or skill. In the dimness the two men fought like animals, tooth and nail, yet Bannon kept slamming his right to the bigger man's stomach. The teamster coughed and gasped, and then Rock swung a right to his chin that staggered him, and followed it up with a right and a left. Miller went down, and Bannon stooped and grasped his shirt collar in his left hand.

  Holding the man at arm's length in a throttling grip, Bannon smashed him in the face again and again, then he struck him in the body and hurled him to the ground. Sharon, wide-eyed and panting, still stood there. "Get to your house," Bannon snapped. "Tell your father to go armed, always. This is only the beginning!"

  As she fled, somebody behind her said, "Hey, what's goin' on here?"

  Behind her there was a pound of a horse's hoofs, and she knew Rock was gone. Swiftly, when she reached the house, she stripped the saddle from the mare and turned it into the corral. Then she went into the house and lighted the lamp. A few minutes later, her father came in. She told him all that had happened.

  He stood there, resting his fists on the table. Then he straightened.

  "Honey," he said, "I'm afraid I did wrong to stop here. I wish now I'd gone on with Bob Sprague and the others. They'd be 'most to Californy by now. I'm afraid--I'm afraid!"

  Chapter V

  Rock Bannon stopped that night in a line cabin six miles west of Poplar and across the valley. When morning came, he was just saddling up when Bat Chavez rode in. With him were Johnny Stark and Lew Murray. All three were armed.

  Bat grinned at him. Then his eyes fell on the skinned knuckles, and he chuckled. "Looks like you had some action."

  "A little," Rock said, and then explained briefly. "You watch yourselves," he said, "and stick together. That outfit's out for trouble."

  "All I want's a shot at Zapata," Bat said harshly. "I'll kill me a breed if I get it."

  Rock mounted and rode north toward the ranch house. No act of his could avert trouble now. He had hoped to convince the settlers who came with the wagon train that they should break away from Mort Harper.

  That would draw the lines plainly--the ranch against the land-grabbers. He knew that Mulholland was an honest, if a stupid man. The others of the train were honest, but some of them, like Purcell and Lamport, were firm adherents of Harper, and believed in him. This belief they combined with a dislike of Rock Bannon.

  It had been a hard task to persuade Hardy Bishop to let them stay. The old man was a fire-eater, and he knew what it would mean to let settlers get a toehold in his rich valley. Once in, they would encroach more and more on his best range, until he was crowded back to nothing. Only his affection for Rock had convinced him--
and the fact that he had gleaned from Rock's talk: among the settlers was a girl.

  Rock Bannon knew what the old man was thinking. Lonely, hard-bitten and tough, Bishop was as affectionate as many big bearlike men are. His heart was as big and warm as himself, and from the day he had taken Rock Bannon in, when the boy was orphaned at six when Kaw Indians had killed his parents, Bishop had lived as much for Rock as for his ranch. Now, more than anything, he wanted Rock settled, married, and living on the broad acres of Bishop's Valley.

  It had been that as much as anything that brought him around to Rock's way of thinking when Rock planned to go east to Council Bluffs. Secretly, he hoped the boy would come back with a wife, and certainly there were no women around Bishop's Valley but an occasional squaw. He had never seen this girl with the wagon train, but he had gleaned more than a little from Rock's casual comments, and what he heard pleased him.

  Hardy Bishop was a big man, weighing, now that he was heavy around the middle, nearly three hundred pounds. Yet in the days of his raw youth he tipped the beam at no less than two hundred and fifty pounds. On his hip even the big dragoon Colts looked insignificant, but he was scarcely less fast than Rock.

  Seated deep in a cowhide-covered chair, he looked up when Rock came in, and grinned. He was just filling his pipe. There was a skinned place on Bannon's cheekbone, and his knuckles were raw.

  "Trouble, you've had," Bishop said, his deep voice filling the room. "Been over to look at them settlers again? Think they killed Wes?"

  "Not the settlers," Rock said. "One of the men with them."

  Rock sat down on the butt of a log and quietly outlined the whole situation, explaining about Harper, Zapata, and the teamster.

  "They had that stuff cached in the hills," Rock went on. "Red Lunney spotted it some time back. There were about a dozen men holed up back there with a lot of supplies, too many for themselves. He kept an eye on them, but they didn't wander around, and made no trouble, so he left them alone.

  "Evidently Mort Harper had them planted there. The wagon train, as near as I can figure, he planned to use as a blind in case the government got into this. He could always say they were honest settlers looking for homes, and the government would be inclined to favor them. What he really wants is Bishop's Valley!"

  "He'll have a time gettin' it!" Bishop said grimly. "I'll bank on that. I fit Indians all over these hills, but this valley I bought fair and square from old War Cloud. We never had no Indian trouble until lately, when the wagon trains started comin' through. Those Mormons, they had the right idea. Treat Indians good, pay for what you get, and no shootin' Indians for the fun of it, like some folks do!

  "Why, Rock, I trapped all over these mountains. Lived with Indians, trapped with them, hunted with them, slept in their tepees. I never had trouble with them. I was through this country with Wilbur Price Hunt's Astorians when I was no more'n sixteen, but a man growed. I was with John Day in this country after that, and he saw more of it than any other man.

  "Took me two years to drive these cattle in here. First ever seen in this country! I drove them up from Santa Fe in six or seven of the roughest drives any man ever saw, with Indians doin' most of my drivin' for me. They said I was crazy then, but now my cattle run these hills and they eat this valley grass until their sides are fit to bust. One of these days you'll start drivin' these cattle east. Mark my words, there'll come a day they'll make you rich ... And then some whippersnapper like this Harper--why!" He rubbed his jaw irritably, then looked up at Rock. "You see that girl? That Crockett girl?"

  "Uh-huh," Rock admitted. "I did."

  "Why not stop this here cayusin' around and bring her home, son? Time you took a wife. Ain't no sense in a man runnin' loose too long. I did, and then hadn't my wife very long before she died. Fine girl, too."

  "Hardy," Rock said suddenly, calling him by his first name, as he had since Bishop first took him in hand as a child, "I don't want war with those people. They're askin' for it, and that Mulholland is simple enough to be led by the nose by Harper. Why don't you let me go get Zapata? I'll take him on myself. In fact," he added grimly, "I'd like to! Then we can take some of the boys, get Harper and his teamsters and start them out of here."

  "Separate the sheep from the goats, eh?" Bishop looked at him quizzically. "All right, son. I've gone along with you this long. You take the boys, you get that Harper out of there and start him back for Laramie.

  "As for Zapata, do what you like. I've seen some men with guns, and you're the fastest thing I ever did see, and the best shot. But don't leave him alive. If I had my way, we'd string every one of 'em to a poplar tree, and right quick."

  The old man grinned briefly at Bannon, leaned back and lighted his pipe. So far as he was concerned, the subject was closed.

  Bat Chavez was a man who made his own plans and went his own way. Loyal to the greatest degree, he obeyed Rock Bannon or Hardy Bishop without question. They were his bosses, and he liked and respected them both. However, he had another loyalty, and that was to the memory of Wes Freeman.

  He and Wes had ridden together, hunted together, fought Indians together. Wes was younger, and Bat Chavez had always considered himself the other's sponsor as well as friend. Now Wes was dead, and to Bat Chavez that opened a feud that could be settled only by blood. Johnny Stark and Lew Murray were like-minded.

  Both were young, hardy, and accustomed to live by the gun. They understood men like Zapata. Of the three, perhaps the only one who rated anything like an even break with the half-breed was the half-Mexican, half-Irish Chavez. However, no one of them would have hesitated to draw on sight.

  They weren't looking for trouble, but they were ready. In that frame of mind they started down the valley to move some of the cattle away from the mouth of Poplar Canyon. No one of them knew what he was riding into, and had they known, no one of them would have turned back.

  Mort Harper, in his living quarters in the back of the saloon, was disturbed. Things had not gone as he'd planned. Secure in his familiarity with men of Hardy Bishop's type, he had been positive that the arrival of the wagon train and the beginning of their settlement would precipitate trouble. He had counted on a sudden attack by Bishop, and perhaps the killing of one or more of the settlers. Nothing more, he knew, would have been required to unite them against the common enemy. Peace-loving they might be, but they were men of courage, and men who believed in independence and equal rights for all. Typically American, they wouldn't take any pushing around.

  On his knowledge of their character and that of Bishop he had built his plans. Over a year before, he had seen Bishop's Valley, and the sight had aroused a lust for possession that he had never known could live within him. Since that day he had lived for but one thing: to possess Bishop's Valley, regardless of the cost.

  It was beyond the reach of law. Few people in the country had any idea the valley existed or that it had been settled. His first thought was to ride in with a strong band of outlaws recruited from the border towns, and take the place by main force; but times, he knew, were changing.

  Morton Harper was shrewd enough to understand that the fight might arouse government inquiry. Fremont and Carson knew this country, and it was possible the Army might soon move into it. It would behoove him to have justice on his side.

  The wagon trains offered that chance. From the first he had seen what a good chance it was. At the fort he watched them go through, and he saw the weariness of women and children, the haggard lines of men's faces. The novelty of the trip was over, and miles upon miles remained before they could reach Oregon. If he could get some of them into the valley country, he believed he could persuade them, by some method, to stay on. With that end in view, he watched until he saw the wagon train he wanted. Those which were led by able and positive men he had avoided. When he encountered Cap Mulholland, he was quick to perceive his opportunity.

  In his visit to the camp he noted that Tom Crockett was a mild, tolerant man, friendly, and interested mainly in finding a new ho
me and getting a plow into the ground. Pagones was a strong, able man, but not outspoken or likely to push himself into a position of leadership.

  Pike Purcell and Lamport were honest, able men, but ignorant and alike in their dislike of Rock Bannon. Lamport, who was unmarried and thoroughly undesirable, had fancied himself for an inside track with Sharon Crockett until Bannon joined the train.

  Rock Bannon was constantly with her, first as a wounded man needing care, and later as a rider. Lamport grew jealous. Purcell, married to a nagging wife, had looked after Sharon with desire. His own dislike of Bannon stemmed from the same source, but grew even more bitter because Pike sensed Bannon was the better man, and Pike hated him for it.

  Mort Harper was quick to curry the favor of these two. He talked with them, flattered them subtly, and bought them drinks. He learned that Purcell was desperately hard up, and lent him some money. He gave Lamport a gun he admired.

  The only flaw in the picture had been Rock Bannon, and in Rock, Harper was quick to recognize a formidable and dangerous antagonist. He also realized he had an excellent weapon in the veiled enmity of Purcell and Lamport.

  His plans had gone ahead very well until the attack by Bishop failed to materialize. Despite himself, he was disturbed. Would the old man really let them settle there? He caused a few cattle to be killed for meat, and left evidence about. That Rock Bannon had found the remains of the slaughtered cattle and buried them, he could not know. The expected attack failed, and he sensed a falling away from him on the part of the settlers.

  The only way he could hope to get the valley was by precipitating open warfare, killing off the Bishop forces, and taking possession. Then in due time he could eliminate the settlers themselves and reign supreme, possessor of one of the largest cattle empires in the country.

  Pete Zapata was under no orders to kill, but the fact that he had killed Wes Freeman fell in line with Harper's plans. Yet he could sense the disaffection among the settlers. Crockett and Pagones could be a strong force against him, if they became stubborn. Something was needed to align them firmly on his side.