Novel 1957 - The Tall Stranger Read online

  Rock scrambled to his feet, and lunged as he picked his hands out of the dust, butting Lamport in the chest. The big renegade jerked up a stiff thumb, trying for Rock’s eye, but Bannon rolled his head away and swung a left to the wind, and then a driving right that ripped Lamport’s ear, starting a shower of blood.

  Lamport now charged again and caught Bannon with two long swings on the head. His skull roaring with pain and dizziness, Rock braced himself and started to swing in a blind fury, both hands going with every ounce of power he could muster.

  Lamport met him and, spraddle-legged, the two started to slug. Lamport was the bigger, and his punches packed terrific power, but were a trifle slower. It was nip and tuck, dog eat dog, and the two battled until the breath gasped in their lungs and whistled through their teeth. Lamport ducked his battered face and started to walk in, stemming the tide of Bannon’s blows by sheer physical power.

  Rock shifted his attack with lightning speed. He missed a right, and following it in with the weight of his body, slid his arm around Lamport’s thick neck, grabbed the wrist with his left hand, and jerked up his feet and sat down hard, trying to break Lamport’s neck.

  But the big renegade knew all the tricks, and as Rock’s feet flew up, Lamport hurled his weight forward and to the left, falling with his body half across Bannon. It broke the hold, and they rolled free. Rock came to his feet, and Lamport, catlike in his speed, lashed out with a wicked kick for his head.

  Rock rolled away from it and hurled himself at Lamport’s one standing leg in a flying tackle. The big man went down, and as they scrambled up, Rock hit him with a left and right, splitting his right cheek in a bone-deep gash, and pulping his lips.

  Lamport was bloody and battered now, yet he kept coming, his breath wheezing. Rock Bannon stabbed a left into his face, set himself and whipped up a right uppercut to the body. Lamport gasped. Bannon circled, then smashed him in the body with another right, then another and another. Lamport’s jaw was hanging open now, his face battered and bleeding from a dozen cuts and abrasions. Rock walked in, measured him, then crossed a right to his chin. He followed it up with two thudding, bone-crushing blows, and Lamport reeled, tried to steady himself, and then measured his length in the dust.

  Rock Bannon weaved on his feet, then walked to the watering trough and ducked his head into it. He came up spluttering, then splashed water over his face and body, stripping away the remnants of his torn shirt.

  “We got ’em all, boss,” Red said. “You want we should go after the settlers?”

  “No, and leave their homes alone. Where’s Kies?”

  “The storekeeper? Inside, I guess.”

  Rock strapped on his guns and strode up the steps of the store with Red and Chavez at his heels. Kies was waiting behind the counter, his face white.

  “Kies,” Rock said, “have you got the bills for the goods you sold the settlers?”

  “The bills?” Kies’s frightened eyes showed doubt, then dismay. “Why, yes.”

  “Get ’em out.”

  Fumblingly, Kies dug out the bills. Quickly, Bannon scanned through them. Then he took out a match and set fire to the stack as they lay on the counter.

  Kies sprang for them. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re payin’ the price of hookin’ up with a crooked bunch,” Bannon said grimly, as Chavez held the angry storekeeper. “You got a horse?”

  “Yes, I have a—horse. But I—”

  “Red,” Bannon turned. “Give this man some shells, a rifle, a canteen and two days’ grub—skimpy rations. Then put him on a horse and start him on his way. If he tries to load that rifle or if he doesn’t ride right out of the country, hang him:”

  “But the Indians!” Kies protested. “And my store!”

  “You haven’t got a store,” Bannon told him harshly. “You’ll have to look out for the Indians yourself.”

  “Boss.” Chavez touched him on the shoulder. “Hombres here want to talk.”

  Rock Bannon wheeled. Tom Crockett, Pagones and Dud Kitchen were standing there.

  “Bannon,” Crockett said, “Harper took my girl. Kitchen saw him tying her to a horse.”

  Rock’s face went white, then stiffened. “I reckon he was the one she wanted,” he said. “She had Zapata waitin’ for me, and she led that raid to the ranch.”

  “No, she didn’t do that, Rock,” Pagones said. “The raid wasn’t even organized when she left. As for Zapata—”

  “He forced himself on us,” Crockett protested. “And she was tied to the saddle. She didn’t want to go with Harper. She loves you.”

  “That’s right, Rock,” Pagones assured him. “Mary’s known that for weeks.”

  “All right,” Rock said. He jerked a shirt from a stack on the counter and began getting into it. “I’ll find ’em.”

  “Who goes along with you?” Bat asked eagerly.

  “Nobody,” Bannon said. “This is my job.”

  Chapter 9

  *

  THE STEEL-DUST STALLION liked the feel of the trail. He always knew when he was going some place that was beyond the place where distance lost itself against the horizon. He knew it now, knew in the sound of Rock Bannon’s voice and the easy way he sat in the saddle.

  Rock rode through the poplars where the wagon train had spent its last night on the trail, and as he passed, he glanced down at the ruts, already grown with grass. It seemed such a long time ago, yet it was scarcely more than days since the wagons had waited here. He had observed them from the mountains, looking back for the last time as he rode away from the train.

  He turned the stallion up the long, grassy canyon where Freeman had been killed. The trail Mort Harper had left was plain enough. So far he had been running, later he would try to cover it, yet already Bannon was looking ahead, planning, trying to foresee what plan, if any, could be in the man’s mind.

  The Day’s River region was one of the most rugged in all America. No man knew it well, few knew it even passingly well. Unless a man chose carefully of the trails that it offered, he would run into a blind canyon, a trail that ended in a jump-off, or some blind tangle of boulders.

  There were trails through; the Indians had used them. Other Indians, ages before, had left picture-writing on the canyon walls, some of it in places almost impossible to reach. No man living knew the history of this region.

  There were places here with a history stranger than any written—an old weapon washed from the sands of a creek, a strange date on a canyon wall. There was one place miles from here where the date “1642” was carved on a canyon wall among other dates and names, and no man has yet accounted for that date, nor said who put it there, nor how he came to be in the country.

  From Grass Canyon the trail of the two horses led into a narrow draw with very steep sides overgrown with birch, balsam and cottonwood. His rifle ready, although anticipating no trouble at this stage, Rock pushed on.

  The draw now opened on a vast region of jagged mountain ridges, gorges, cliffs, and mesas. The stallion followed the trail along the edge of a meadow watered by a brawling mountain stream. Some teal flew from the pool of water backed up by a beaver dam, and Rock heard the sharp, warning slap of the beaver’s tail on the water.

  The trail dipped now down a narrow passage between great rock formations that towered heavenward. On one side was an enormous mass of rock like veined marble, and on the other a rock of brightest orange fading to rust-red, shot through with streaks of purple.

  Boulders scattered the space between the walls, and at times passage became difficult. At one place great slabs of granite had sloughed off from high above and come crashing down upon the rocks below. Far ahead he could see the trail leaving the lowlands and climbing, threadlike, across the precipitous wall of the mountain.

  Studying the trail and the speed of the horses he was following, Rock could see that Mort was trying for distance, and fast. Rock knew, too, that unless Harper was far ahead, he would, if watching his back trail, soon know he wa
s followed. From the incredible heights ahead the whole series of canyons and gorges would be plainly visible except when shoulders of rock or boulders intervened.

  The trail up the face of the cliff had been hewn by nature from the solid rock itself, cutting across the face of an almost vertical cliff, and only emerging at times in bare rock ledges or dipping around some corner of rock into a cool, shadowed gorge.

  “He’s headin’ for Big Track,” Rock told himself suddenly. “He sure is. He’s headin’ for Big Track Hollow.”

  He knew the place, and certainly if Harper were following a known or planned route, he could choose no better. Big Track Hollow was a basin over six thousand feet above sea level where there was a wealth of grass, and plenty of water and sheltering woods.

  This would be the best place in this region to hole up for any length of time. Long ago, somebody had built a cabin there, and there were caves in the basin walls. It took its name from gigantic dinosaur tracks that appeared in the rock all along one side.

  For Harper the place had the distinct advantage of offering four separate avenues of escape; each would take him over a trail widely divergent from the others, so once a follower was committed to one trail he would have to retrace his steps and start over again to find his quarry. The time consumed would leave him so far behind that it would be impossible to catch up.

  Rock Bannon stared thoughtfully at the tracks. It would soon be night, and the two must stop, yet they had sufficient lead on him to make it difficult to overtake them soon, and at night he could easily get off the trail and lose himself in the spiderweb of canyons.

  Reluctantly, he realized he must camp soon. The landscape everywhere now was rock, red rock cliffs towering against the sky, cathedral-shaped buttes and lofty pinnacles. He rode down the steep trail, dipping into shadowy depths and riding along a canyon that echoed with the stallion’s steps. It was like riding down a long hallway carved from solid rock, lonely and empty.

  There was no sound but the walking of the horse and the creak of the saddle leather. Dwarfed by the lofty walls, he moved like a ghost in a vast, unreal world, yet he rode warily, for at any point Harper might elect to stop and waylay him.

  Now the trail down the long avenue between the walls began to rise, and suddenly he emerged upon a plateau that seemed to hang upon the rim of the world.

  Far away and below him stretched miles upon miles of the same broken country, but there were trees and grass in the valleys below, and he turned the horse at right angles, then reined in. Here for a space was gravel and rock. He studied the ground carefully, then moved on.

  The trail was difficult now, and in the fading light he was compelled to slip from the saddle, rifle in hand, and walk along over the ground. The trail wound around and around, steadily dropping. Then ahead of him he saw a pool, and beside it a place where someone had lain to drink.

  Sliding to the ground, he stripped the saddle from the stallion and tethered him on a grassy plot. Then he gathered dry sticks for a fire, which he made, keeping it very small, in the shadow of some boulders. When the fire was going he made coffee, then slipped back from the fire and carefully scouted the surrounding darkness.

  Every step of the way was a danger. Mort Harper was on the run now, and he would fight like a cornered rat, where and when and how he could find the means.

  Before daylight Rock rolled out, packed his gear and saddled the stallion. Yet when it was light enough to see, there was no trail. The water of the stream offered the best possibility, so he rode into it himself, scanning the narrow banks with attention.

  Finally, after being considerably slowed down by the painstaking search, he found where they had left the stream. A short distance further, after seeing no marks, he found a bruised clump of grass where a horse had stepped and slipped.

  He had gone no more than four miles when he found where they had camped. There had been two beds, one back in a corner of rocks away from the other, and cut off from the trail by it. Mort Harper was taking no chances. Yet when Rock looked around, he glimpsed something under a bush in the damp earth.

  Kneeling, he put his head under the bush. Scratched in the earth with a stick were the words, Be Careful, and then, Big Track.

  He had been right then. Harper was headed for Big Track. If that were so, they were a good day’s ride from there. Bannon thought that over while climbing the next ridge. Then he made a sudden decision. From the ridge, he examined the terrain before him, then wheeled his horse. As he did so a shot rang out. Leaping from the horse to a cleft in the rock, he lifted his rifle and waited.

  The country on the other side of the ridge was fairly open, but with clumps of brush and boulders. To ride down there after a rifleman—and Harper was an excellent shot—would be suicide. Only his wheeling of the stallion had saved his life at that moment.

  Sliding back from the cleft, he retreated down the hillside to the gray. He swung into the saddle, and keeping the ridge between him and the unseen marksman, he started riding east. He had made his decision, and he was going to gamble on it.

  If he continued to follow, as he was following now, he would fall further and further behind, compelled to caution by Harper’s rifle and the difficulty of following the trail. If Harper reached Big Track Hollow first, it would be simple for him to take a trail out of there, and then it would be up to Bannon to find which trail.

  Rock Bannon had never heard of a cutoff to Big Track, but he knew where he was, and he knew where Big Track was. Ahead of him a draw opened and he raced the steel-dust into it and started along it, slowing the horse to a canter. Ahead of him and on the skyline, a sharp pinnacle pointed at the sky. That was his landmark.

  The country grew rougher, but he shifted from draw to draw, cut across a flat, barren plateau of scattered rocks and rabbit grass, traversed a lava flow, black and ugly, to skirt a towering rust-red cliff. A notch in the cliff ahead seemed to indicate a point of entry, so he guided the stallion among the boulders. A lizard darted from under the stallion’s hoofs, and overhead a buzzard wheeled in wide, lonely circles.

  The sun was blazing hot now, and the rocks caught and multiplied the heat. He skirted the gray, dirty mud shore of a small alkaline lake, and rode into a narrow cleft in the mountain.

  At one point it was so narrow that for thirty yards he had to pull one foot from the stirrup and drag the stirrup up into the saddle. Then the cleft opened into a spacious green valley, its sides lined with a thick growth of quaking aspen. There was water here, and he stopped to give the stallion a brief rest and to drink.

  They had been moving at a rapid clip for the distance and the heat, yet the horse looked good. Again he checked his guns. It was nip and tuck now. If he made Big Track before they reached it, or by the same time, he must hurry. If he failed, then there was not one chance in a dozen that he would ever see Sharon again.

  Now, every movement, every thought, every inflection of her voice returned to him, filling him with desperation. She was his, and had always been his—not only, he understood now, in his own heart, but in hers. He had always known what Mort Harper was. He should never have doubted the girl. It was amazing to him now that he had doubted her for even an instant.

  So on he went, though the sun blazed down on the flaming rocks in a torment and the earth turned to hot brass beneath the stallion’s feet. The mountains grew rougher. There was more and more lava, and then when it seemed it could get no worse, he rode out upon a glaring white alkali desert that lasted for eight miles at midday, stifling dust and blazing sun.

  Rock Bannon seemed to have been going for hours now, yet it was only because of his early start. It was past one in the afternoon, and he had been riding, with but one break, since four in the morning.

  On the far side of the desert there was a spring of water that tasted like rotten eggs—mineral water. He drank a little, rubbed the horse down with a handful of rabbit grass, and let him graze briefly. Then he mounted again and went on, climbing into the hills.

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p; Big Track was nearer, somewhere not far from the great sky-stabbing pinnacle he had seen. Sweat streamed down his face and down his body under his shirt. He squinted his eyes against the sun and the smart of the sweat. He had to skirt a towering peak to get to the vicinity of Big Track.

  He was riding now with all thought lost, only his goal in mind, and a burning, driving lust to come face to face with Mort Harper. Somewhere ahead he would be waiting; somewhere ahead they would meet.

  The sun brought something like delirium, and he thought again of the long days of riding over the plains, of Sharon’s low voice and her cool hands as he wrestled with pain and fever, recovering from the wounds of a lone battle against Indians. He seemed to feel again the rocking roll of the wagon over the rutted, dusty trail, tramped by the thousands heading for the new lands in the West.

  Why had he waited so long to speak? Why hadn’t he been able to find words to tell the girl he loved her? Words had always left him powerless; to act was easy, but somehow to shape the things he felt into words was beyond him, and women put so much emphasis on words, on the saying of things, and the way they were said.

  He swung down from the saddle after a long time and walked on, knowing even the great stallion’s strength was not without limit. The wild, strange country through which he was going now was covered with blasted boulders, the rough, slaglike lava, and scattered pines, dwarfish and wind-bedraggled, whipped into agonized shapes by the awful contortions of the wind.

  Then he saw the stark pinnacle almost ahead, and he saw, beyond it, the green of Big Track. He climbed back into the saddle again, and mopped the sweat from his face. The big horse walked wearily now, but the goal was reached. Rock Bannon loosened the guns in their holsters, and, grim-faced, he turned down a natural trail that no man had ridden before him, and into the green lush splendor of Big Track Hollow.