Novel 1959 - Taggart (V5.0) Page 13

  Swante Taggart rode over the rim and started down the trail. The others followed, and they went fast. They were almost halfway down before the firing began. A shot rang out and Stark fired almost as the flame stabbed from behind a rock, and he shot perfectly. An Apache lunged out from behind the rock, tumbled over and over, then came up shooting and three bullets nailed him as one.

  Riding hard, Taggart hit the brush and, turning, blasted three shots along the face of the forest from where some of the firing had come.

  Consuelo held a rifle and rode like an Indian, straight up and shooting. They plunged into the trail toward Nugget Wash, driving the pack animals ahead of them. Shoyer brought up the rear, firing at intervals. One of the pack animals was bleeding badly, the blood scattering along the trail.

  Taggart pushed on, levering a shell into his Winchester as an Indian leaned from the rocks to get a better shot, and holding the rifle in one hand like a pistol, Taggart fired, splashing rock splinters in the Apache’s face. He jerked back, exposing his body, and Consuelo shot into it. The Indian let go and tumbled down the slope to land sprawling beside the trail.

  It was a wild ride down the narrow trail which plunged down the mountainside and into Nugget Wash. Coming briefly into the open, Taggart saw three smokes ahead of them, and he turned abruptly and left the trail. He climbed out of the wash, the others following and driving the pack animals. One of the animals made the shoulder above the trail, staggered on, and then fell.

  Taggart was down swiftly and slashing at the pack saddle. Jerking it free he tumbled the saddle, gold and all, into a narrow crevice in the rocks and shoved gravel and rocks over it. It would look like debris which had fallen from their passing.

  He pointed to a slash of white in the red rock above the spot. “There’s your mark! Come and get it in better times!”

  Then he led them west from the trail, working his way through rough and broken country. Sometimes he was up ahead, sometimes he was driving the pack animals.

  But they were not clear of trouble. Suddenly an Apache broke from the brush close by and sprang at Taggart, knife in hand. It was Stark who killed him, firing three fast shots that knocked him from Taggart’s shoulder.

  The Indians came out of the brush in a swarm and for a moment there was a mêlée of plunging horses and blazing guns. Taggart wheeled his horse and drove the plunging pack mules into the attackers and, charging one Indian, shot almost into his face. Stark had pulled off to one side where, sitting coolly in his saddle, with his weight shifted to his right stirrup, he fired his pistol methodically.

  Pete Shoyer charged with the mules and rode into the attacking Indians, rifle blasting. One Apache he caught with a lifting rifle muzzle and the sight of the rifle ripped a gash under the man’s chin, tearing it to the bone and showering him with blood. Following through, Shoyer struck him with a swinging rifle butt and brought the man down.

  Consuelo, all her fear gone now that the fight was upon them, was firing like a man and riding like a demon.

  The fight could have lasted no more than a minute or two, and then it broke off suddenly and they were charging down the trail again. Taggart thumbed cartridges into his rifle, and reloaded his pistol. Their horses were lathered and they had lost another pack mule, this one the one with the supplies.

  At a run they charged across the ground, riding over a rough and broken area that, under ordinary circumstances, none of them would have dreamed of crossing at more than a walk. Taggart still led, pushing toward Pinal Creek. There was a ranch somewhere on Pinal Creek, he believed, and it might give them temporary shelter.

  Pete Shoyer closed in on Consuelo. “Come on!” he said. “Let’s get out of here! We’ll take one mule and ride!”

  “No,” she said, “I stay with my husband.”

  For an instant Shoyer’s face was savage. “You don’t pull that on me!” he said, “Come on!”

  He grabbed at her arm, and like a striking adder she stabbed at him with a knife, but he jerked away just in time. His face was still and hard, his eyes cold. “All right,” he said. “I’ll kill you for that.”

  Consuelo rode away from him and pulled up alongside Stark, who seemed not to notice Shoyer. The gunman held his horse, and then abruptly he swung away from them and started away across the hills. Grouped and silent, they watched him go, but nobody called after him, nor spoke of him.

  When he topped out on the rise, he drew rein and they saw him there, darkly ominous against the red sun of the ending day. Miriam, staring at him, felt a shudder of apprehension.

  He was for a moment as if suspended there, as if he were part of the sunset, and then he was gone and the horizon was empty.

  CHAPTER 13

  SWANTE TAGGART LED the pack train into Globe with his Winchester across the saddle in front of him. He sat straight in the saddle, with his hat pulled down and his moccasined feet thrust into the stirrups. The horse he rode was beat, and even the Missouri hardtails were walking with heads low, slogging it along the trail into town.

  Miriam rode behind him, carrying her own rifle and followed by the mules. Bringing up the rear were Consuelo and Adam Stark.

  The town of Globe was a huddle of shacks and tents on the east bank of Pinal Creek, an isolated town whose isolation was its own protection. Every citizen had at least one gun within reach at any given moment. They expected an Apache attack at any time. Freighters brought wagon trains in from Silver City at intervals, and there was some communication with Tucson and Prescott.

  The arrival of battered and bloody pack trains or freight wagons was not an unusual sight in Globe during those first years of its rugged life, and only a few citizens turned to look at the pack train that headed for the Wells Fargo office. Those few were seasoned mining men who knew a thing or two about pack trains and the comparative weight of various packs. These were obviously heavy, and heavy packs usually meant gold.

  Leaving both girls and Stark himself sitting guard over the gold, Taggart pushed open the door of the nearest saloon. He stepped into the room, a tall, unshaven figure with a bloody bandage on his left arm and a rifle in his right hand. At the bar he asked the bartender, “Where’s the Wells Fargo man?”

  The bartender, a bald-pated man with red cheeks and a thick mustache, jerked his head toward a man down the bar. Then he called out, “Joe! Gent askin’ for Wells Fargo!”

  All heads turned, measuring Taggart with cool eyes. Joe was a short, squarely built man with a square, competent face. “What can I do for you?”

  “Deposit,” Taggart said.

  They walked out together, and one man followed them to the door. At a comment over his shoulder, several others congregated to watch the mules unloaded, then drifted across the street to see what went on.

  Taggart was standing on the stoop of the express office and he stopped them at mid-road. “Hold it!” he said. “No offense, but this is private business.”

  “What you got in those sacks?”

  “Lay-overs to catch meddlers,” Taggart said, using an answer he remembered from his grandmother.

  “Is that gold?”

  “Snakes,” he said, “and Apache heads. We skinned our snakes back up the line a ways, and any of you boys hitting the trail tomorrow may find trouble around. I don’t think we were friendly enough.”

  One by one the sacks were carried inside while Taggart stood on guard. Slowly, the spectators drifted back into the saloon, where all news eventually was passed out. The agent would be back in a little while and then they would know what was in those sacks. He’d tell them … he was a man who loved a good story.

  Only it didn’t work out that way. When the last of the gold was measured out and sacked up again, and receipts given for it, Joe hurried to close up. As he started to walk back toward the saloon Taggart dropped a rifle barrel across in front of him and Adam Stark smiled and said, “Not tonight. Tonight you’re our guest.”

  “But I’ve got a bottle over there!” Joe said.

  “You sti
ck with us. You’ll have all you can drink, on us.”

  Protesting, he was ushered across the street and into a shack that advertised BEDS. Stark promptly bought out the house. Then he sent out for a few bottles and, handing a bottle to Joe, he said, “You wanted to drink, go ahead and get drunk, get stone drunk, dead drunk. But if you try to leave this place before stage time tomorrow you’ll be able to feed yourself through the hole in the other side of your head.”

  “Now look here!” Joe objected. “I—!”

  “Drink,” Stark replied.

  They sat out the night, the two girls dozing in chairs near the wall, Taggart and Stark trading places on watch. At daylight Taggart stood on the stoop and watched the pale light find its way down the gray street and along the shabby, wind-worn buildings. There was no sign of Pete Shoyer.

  Miriam came out to join him. “You think he’ll come back?” she said, reading his thoughts.

  “He’ll come.”

  “What time is the stage due?”

  “Shortly after ten, and we’ll ride out with it. You two inside, Stark and I alongside. He can sell the mules, they’re at a premium here.”

  “And then?”

  “Tucson.”

  Miriam was silent. And after that? Swante Taggart was not speaking of the after time, for he did not know. No man knew what would happen then. He seemed so sure, so confident, but she knew what a bullet might do.

  Most skilled gunfighters avoided each other, she knew that. There were occasional meetings between them, but they preferred to avoid trouble … there was too much of a chance that both men would be killed.

  Somewhere a door banged shut and a windlass began to creak. A rooster crowed, and then there was silence. A dog trotted into the dusty street and lay down to roll.

  “A man comes a long way,” Taggart said, “to get where I am now.”

  “Shoyer is a dangerous man.”

  “It was not that I was thinking of.” He paused. “I was thinking of you. You’re a lot of woman, Miriam, the kind a man would want.”

  “A girl waits a long time, too.”

  A lone horseman rode down the street and dismounted in front of the saloon. He was a stranger.

  He went up on the stoop and banged on the saloon door, but there was no response. Turning, he saw the two in front of the sign that said BEDS. “Where can a man get a bite to eat?” he yelled. “I’m hongry!”

  Taggart pointed with the Winchester at the squat little building with glass in its one window. It was no more than sixty feet away, but the man swung into his saddle to ride the distance.

  “Adam is grateful to you,” Miriam said. “Without you we would never have gotten through.”

  “Without me you might never have had any trouble. I brought trouble to you.”

  “No.”

  The strange rider had interrupted their conversation and Miriam wanted to get back on the right trail with Taggart, but she was not sure how to do it. She had always been outspoken with men, more direct than a woman should be, but now she could find no words, she could just look at him foolishly, feeling very young and suddenly awkward. She must look a sight. How could any man be romantic with a girl who looked as she must look?

  Adam Stark came to the door, followed by Consuelo. Somehow the Mexican girl had contrived to make herself look lovely, and Miriam stared at her enviously, wondering how she could do it so easily.

  “He’s out cold.” Stark jerked his head toward the express agent inside. “I say we load up the stage and take it out ourselves.”

  “There’ll be a driver.”

  “We’ll need him. I won’t feel safe until this stuff is on deposit in Tucson.”

  “Wells Fargo are responsible right now.”

  “Anyway, we’re making sure.” Stark glanced quickly at Taggart. “You’re with me, aren’t you?”

  “As far as Tucson? Yes.”

  He was going on then. Miriam tried not to show her feelings. He was going to leave, after all this. After all what? There had been nothing between them … neither of them had said much, only back there in the night they had talked a bit, but what did that matter? What did it really matter?

  But the thought of Swante Taggart troubled her. What kind of a life was this for anyone? Eating no regular meals, sleeping anywhere at all, nobody to do for him. Like that arm … blood all over it and the flesh cut deep by a bullet, and he had said nothing about it until she found him bandaging it himself.

  A few people were moving around now. They left the BEDS and strolled across to the eating house, and while Adam and Consuelo ate, Taggart stood outside with Miriam.

  “Always wanted a place with a few cows,” he said. “Life like that is mighty lonely.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “A man has to live on his grass. Mostly it’s far from anywhere … no near neighbors, nobody to talk to. It’s a wonder a man like that ever finds him a woman.”

  “If a woman loved a man she would live anywhere, anywhere at all.”

  “A man who loves a woman wants to give her things. He wants to pretty her up … dresses and such things. A man on a ranch may not make much for three, four years. Maybe longer. He doesn’t have much to offer.”

  He stared gloomily across the street. “Best thing a man can do is keep traveling. Keeps him from getting ideas. A man settles down he stagnates, he dries up, loses all his get-up-and-go.”

  Stark and Consuelo came out of the restaurant. The other two started in, but Consuelo stopped Miriam. “I was a fool,” she said. “I am sorry.”

  “We’re all fools part of the time. Some of us most of the time. Men just as much as women, and some of them are as stubborn as any mule-headed bronc.”

  Taggart started in the door, then flushing, he stepped back and held the door open for her.

  There were three tables covered with a kind of slick cloth that Taggart had not seen before, and a waiter in a smeared apron crossed to take their order. “Ain’t seen a egg this week,” he said, “not until this morning. I got three left.”

  “Mr. Taggart will have them. I will have whatever else you have.”

  “I got meat. I got beef meat, deer meat, hog meat, and some mountain sheep meat. I can recommend any of it.”

  “Take the horns off a sheep and bring him in,” Taggart suggested, “and you scramble those eggs and split them two ways. Miss Stark will have half of them.”

  The waiter stared owlishly from one to the other. “Now listen to that! You two are sure formal with each other. What you think this is, Boston?”

  He waddled away and they looked at each other and laughed. Miriam felt herself blushing and looked at her plate. Her fingers were twisted together in her lap, and suddenly she was embarrassed before this man in whose company she had been for days … and nights.

  In one way, you could even say they had slept together. At the thought she blushed again, worse than before. It was nothing like that. Only they were together, and they had slept. A little, anyway.

  They ate in silence. Swante Taggart was a man who appreciated food, and the coffee was just right, he decided. You could float a horse shoe in it. Dump in plenty of coffee, wet it down, and boil it. That was the way to make it. Best coffee was always made in an old tin pail.

  The waiter came over as they finished eating. He had a huge apple pie which he placed on the table. “Honor of the occasion,” he said. “First time I had two such good-lookin’ women in here as you an’ that Mex gal that was just in here.”

  He stared at Miriam and then at Taggart. “You and him sure are lucky. Ain’t but three single women in Globe right now, and one of them is old enough to be Andy Jackson’s grandmother.”

  When they went outside the stage rolled into town. The relief driver came out of a shack stuffing his shirt into his pants with one hand and carrying a gun belt in the other. “Wonder they wouldn’t wake a man up,” he growled. He glanced at the Starks, at Taggart and Miriam. “You passengers?”

  Without waiting for an
answer, he watched them hook the traces of the fresh team. They looked wild and eager, bronco mules and bad ones.

  Then he crossed to the BEDS and shook the snoring agent down for his keys. He wakened him, but without waiting for him or expecting him to follow, he crossed to the station and opened the door and unlocked the big iron safe.

  With Taggart helping, the gold was loaded. The two girls got in and Stark waited outside. Taggart put the last sack into the boot.

  An oldish man with a yellowed mustache appeared and climbed up to the seat. He was the express messenger. He seated himself and cradled a shotgun across his knees, directing a hard look at Taggart and Stark. Taggart stepped into the saddle and Stark mounted up. The stage driver cracked his whip and yelled, and the mules lunged into their harness as if the devil had lit fires under them. They took off for the south.

  It was a quiet ride, those first few miles. Taggart and Stark were tired after the long night with little sleep, and the sun was warm. They dozed in the saddle, roused themselves to look around, and then dozed again. Gradually, they fell back.

  The road at first followed the bed of Pinal Creek, shaded by oak, sycamore, and cottonwood, then it wound upward through the green Pinal Mountains. Many tiny streams fell from rocky crevices, sometimes tumbling a hundred feet. Finally they came down to the valley where Dripping Springs Station was located. Beyond lay the barren, rugged slopes of the Mescals, red and russet in the evening sun.

  The stage rolled up to the long, low station and came to a halt. A few minutes later, Adam Stark, stiff from his bruised and battered muscles, rode up, and behind him came Swante Taggart.

  Taggart swung down. Suddenly he realized he was dead tired. The excitement and pressure of the weeks past were catching up with him, and he leaned heavily against the horse for a minute or two before he shook off his weariness and went about stabling his horse.

  There was a shed stable here, and corrals. He led the steeldust to a stall and tied him there, and forked hay into the manger.

  Miriam had climbed down from the stage and was standing alone near it. Consuelo had gone inside, and Adam was talking to the mustached express messenger.