the Tall Stranger (1982) (10 page)

Rock leaned a hand on his knee. "Pagones, my boys say they didn't kill Collins!"

Dud Kitchen drew in his breath, and Mary looked at him in sudden apprehension.

"What's that you say?" Pagones demanded.

"I repeat, I talked to my boys, and they say they didn't kill Collins. Bat Chavez couldn't see anything but Zapata, Stark and Murray weren't even facing toward Collins then. They say they didn't kill him."

"There was a lot of shooting," Pagones said. "Anything might of happened."

"That's right," Bannon agreed. "But my boys don't think they shot Collins, and that leaves a big question."

"It doesn't leave no question for me!" Dud flared suddenly. "I saw that wound of Collins's! He was shot in the back!"

Pagones's face hardened. He stared down at the floor, his jaw muscles working. Was nothing ever simple any more? Was there nothing on which a man could depend? How had he got into this mess, anyway? What should he do?

"Who do you think?" he asked. "You mean Zapata?"

Their eyes were all on Rock Bannon, waiting, tense. "No," he said. "I mean Mort Harper!" He got up and moved restlessly around the room.

"But that's crazy!" Pagones leaped to his feet. "What would be the object? Is there any reason why he would kill a man on his own side?"

"You know the answer to that as well as I," Bannon said. He got up, too. "He wanted you in this fight, and that was the only way he could get you in. Purcell and Lamport were fire-eaters. They were in, but they weren't enough. He wanted the rest of you, the good, sober, industrious citizens, the men whose reputations at home were good, the men who would look honest to the military if they ever came west."

"I saw that wound," Kitchen repeated. "Collins was killed with a small gun, a small gun with flat-nose or split-ended bullets."

"Who has such a gun?" Pagones said. "You all know that Harper carries a dragoon, like the rest of us."

"In sight, he does," Bannon agreed. "Mort Harper may pack another one."

Rock stopped, feet wide apart. "I've got to get out of here, Pag. I've got to get going, and fast. There's not much chance of anybody being out tonight, but I can't gamble on that. I've got to get away from here, but this is the last time I'll come. I've tried to tell you about Mort Harper for a long time. You've got your last chance to break away, because I'm telling you that if you don't break away there won't be a building standing on this ground within forty-eight hours."

Pagones's head jerked up. "Is that an ultimatum?"

"You bet it is!" Bannon snapped. "If I'd let Bishop have his head, you'd have all been out of here long ago. Wes would be alive now, and Collins, and Murray wouldn't be packin' that slug in his leg, and Dud would be on his feet. If I'd not kept Bishop off you, he would have faced you with forty armed men and ordered you off before you had a stake down or a foundation laid.

"Those boys of ours are spoilin' for a fight. They hate Harper's innards, and they want Zapata. He's a murderin' outlaw, and they all know it."

"I don't know that I can do anything," Pagones protested. "We have to think of Zapata as it is. Harper's the only thing that keeps him and those teamsters off our places and away from our women, anyway!"

Rock Bannon started for the door. With his hand on the latch, he turned, sliding into his slicker.

"You step aside and there won't be any Zapata or his friends!" he declared. "We'll wipe them out so fast they'll be only a memory. We just don't want to kill good people. You can keep your places. We let you come in, and we'll let you stay."

He turned and slipped out the door into the rain. For an instant, he hesitated, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the dark. Rain fell in slanting sheets, striking his face like hailstones and rattling against his oilskin slicker like on a tin roof. Water stood in puddles on the ground and when he stepped down a large drop fell from a tree down the back of his neck.

He hesitated, close against the wet tree trunk, and stared into the night. There was a glow of light from the window of the Crockett place. Somebody was still up. He hesitated, knowing it was dangerous to remain longer, yet longing for a sight of Sharon, for the chance to take her in his arms.

He never had. He had never kissed her, never held her hand. It was all a matter of their eyes, and yet he felt she understood, and perhaps responded to his feeling.

There were lights from the saloon. They would all be down there now, playing cards, drinking. It was a pity he had none of the boys here. They could go in and wipe them out in one final, desperate battle. Lightning flashed, and revealed the stark wet outlines of the buildings, the green of the grass, worn down now, between him and the Crockett cabin.

He stepped out from the tree and started across the open, hearing the far-off thunder muttering among the peaks of the mountains beyond the valley, muttering among the cliffs and boulders like a disgruntled man in his sleep.

He did not fasten his slicker, but held it together with his left hand and kept his right in his pocket, slopping across the wet ground with the rain battering the brim of his hat, beating with angry, skeleton fingers against the slicker.

Under the trees, he hesitated, watching the house. There was no horse around. Suddenly, a column of sparks went up from the chimney as if someone had thrown some sticks on the fire. He started to move, and another cluster of sparks went up. He hesitated; a signal? But who would know he was near?

A third time. Three times was a warning, three smokes, three rifle shots--what could it be? Who could know he was here? It was nonsense, of course, but the sparks made him feel uneasy.

Then again, three times, once very weakly, sparks mounted from the chimney. Somebody was playing with the fire, tapping with a stick on the burning wood, or stirring the fire.

No matter. He was going in. He felt cold, and the warmth of the room would be good again before he began his long ride to the line cabin. A long ride because it would be foolhardy to go down the canyon toward the valley.

He stepped out from under the tree and walked up to the house. His boots made sucking noises in the mud before the door. Lightning flashed and the water glistened on the smooth boards of the door. He should knock, but he stepped up and, keeping to the left of the door, he reached across with his left hand and drew the door wide.

A gun blasted, and he saw the sudden dart of fire from the darkness by the fireplace. The bullet smashed into the door, and then he went in with a rush.

He caught a glimpse of Sharon, her eyes wide with fright, scrambling away from the fire. Zapata lunged from the shadows, his face set in a snarl of bared teeth and gleaming eyes. His gun blasted again, and a bullet snatched at Rock's jacket. Bannon thumbed his gun.

Zapata staggered as though struck by a blow in the stomach. As Rock started for him, he leaped for an inner door. Rock lunged after him, firing again, and there was a crash as he went through the sack-covered window.

Wheeling, Rock leaped for the door and went out. Zapata's gun barked, and something laid a white-hot iron across his leg. Rock brought his gun up and turned his right side to the crouching man, and fired again, fired as though on a target range.

The half-breed coughed, and his pistol dropped into the mud. He clawed with agonized fingers at the other gun, and Rock Bannon could see the front of his shirt darkening with pounding rain and blood, and then Bannon fired again, and the breed went down, clawing at the mud.

A door slammed and there was a yell. Rock wheeled and saw Sharon in the doorway. "I can't stop," he said. "Talk to Pagones." And even as he spoke, he was running across the worn grass toward the trees.

A rifle barked, then another, and then intermittent shots. Crying with fear for him, Sharon Crockett stood in the door, staring into the darkness. Lightning flared, and through the slanting rain she caught a brief glimpse of him, a rifle flared, and then he was gone into the trees. A moment later they heard the pounding of hoofs.

"They'll never catch him on that horse," Tom Crockett said. "He got away!" Sharon turned, and her father was smiling. "Yes, daughter, I'm glad he got away. I'm glad he killed that murderer."

"Oh, Father!" Then his arms were around her, and as running feet slapped in the mud outside, he pushed the door shut.

The door slammed open, and Mort Harper shoved into the room. Behind him were four men, their faces hard, their guns ready.

"What was he doing here?" Harper demanded. "That man's a killer! He's our enemy. Why should he come here?"

"I don't know why he came!" Crockett said coldly. "He never had a chance to say. Zapata had been waiting for him all evening. He seemed to believe he would be here. When Bannon came in, he fired and missed. He won't miss again."

Harper stared at him, his face livid and angry under the glistening dampness of the rain. "You seem glad!" he cried.

"I am!" Crockett said. "That Zapata was a killer, and he deserved killing."

"And I'm glad," Sharon said, her chin lifted. "I'm glad Bannon killed him, glad that Bannon got away."

There was an angry mutter from the men behind Harper, but Mort put up a restraining hand. "This sounds like rebellion. Well, we'll have none of that in this camp. I've been patient with you, Sharon, but my patience is wearing thin."

"Who cares about your patience?" Anger rose in Sharon's eyes. "Your soft talk and lies won't convince us any longer. We want our oxen back, tomorrow! We've had enough of this. We'll get out of here tomorrow if we have to walk."

"No, you won't," Harper said. "Come on, boys. We'll go now."

"Let's teach 'em a lesson, boss," one man said angrily. "To blazes with this palaver!"

"Not now," Harper said. His nostrils were flared with anger, and his face was hard. "Later!"

When the door closed after them, Tom Crockett's face was white. "Well, Sharon," he said quietly, "for better or worse, there it is. Tomorrow we may have to fight. Your mother helped me fight Indians once, long ago. Could you?"

Sharon turned, and suddenly she smiled. "Do you need to ask?"

"No," he smiled back, and she could see a new light in his eyes, almost as if the killing of Zapata and the statement to Harper had made him younger, stronger. "No, I don't," he repeated. "You'd better get some sleep. I'm going to clean my rifle."

Chapter
VII

Rock Bannon's steel-dust stallion took the trail up the canyon at a rapid clip. They might follow him, Bannon knew, and he needed all the lead he could get. Some of those men had been in these hills for quite some time, yet if he ever got away into the wilderness around Day's River, they would never find him.

Shooting it out with six or seven killers was no part of his plan, and he knew the teamsters who had come to Poplar were just that, a band of renegades recruited from the scourings of the wagon trains passing through the fort. After the immediate dash, however, he slowed down to give the steel-dust better footing.

He turned northeast when he came out of Poplar Canyon and rode down into a deep draw that ended in a meadow. The bottom of the draw was roaring with water that had run off the mountain, but as yet it was no more than a foot deep. Far below he could hear the thunder of Day's River, roaring at full flood now.

The canyon through the Narrows would be a ghastly sight with its weight of thundering white water. Always a turmoil, now it would be doubled and tripled by the cloudburst. Rain slanted down, pouring unceasingly on the hills.

The trail by which he had come would be useless on his return. By now the water would be too deep in the narrow canyon up which he had ridden. He must find a new trail, a way to cut back from the primitive wilderness into which he was riding, and down through the valley where Freeman had been killed, and then through the mountains.

Briefly, he halted the big stallion in the lee of a jutting shoulder of granite where wind and rain were cast off into the flat of the valley. Knowing his horse would need every ounce of its strength he swung down, and, his shoulder against the rock, he studied the situation in his mind's eye.

His first desperate flight had taken him northwest into the wild country. Had he headed south he must soon have come out on the plains beyond the entrance to Bishop's Valley where he would have nothing but the speed of his own horse to assist his escape.

He was needed here, now. Any flight was temporary, so in turning north he had kept himself within striking distance of the enemy. His problem now was to find a way through the rugged mountain barrier, towering thousands of feet above him, into Bishop's Valley, and across the valley to home.

No man knew these mountains well, but Hardy Bishop knew them better than anyone else. Next to him, Rock himself knew them best, but with all his knowledge they presented a weird and unbelievable tangle of ridges, canyons, jagged crests, peaks and chasms. At the upper end of the valley the stream roared down a gorge often three thousand feet deep, and with only the thinnest of trails along the cliffs of the Narrows.

The isolated valley might have been walled for the express purpose of keeping him out, for as he ran over the possible routes into the valley, one by one he had to forget them. Bailey's Creek would be a thundering torrent now, water roaring eight to ten feet deep in the narrow canyon. Trapper's Gulch would be no better, and the only other two routes would be equally impassable.