Taggart (1959) Read online

  Taggart

  Louis L’amour

  *

  Chapter One.

  Adam Was Not Sure Why Miriam Had Joined Them, But No Doubt she had her reasons. During the years since their childhood he had come to possess a considerable respect for the quality of her judgment … yet she often startled him with her sudden decisions.

  There was between them more than the natural affection resulting from relationship. They were good friends also, each appreciating the qualities of the other.

  The gold he panned had been taken from a spot on that alluvial fan which left small doubt that the source lay higher up the mountain, for there was no other way the gold could have reached the place where he had discovered it.

  Two further pans taken from higher up the fan confirmed his belief, convincing him that if he could not find the lode from which this gold had flaked off, he could make a stake placering the debris from the fan itself.

  Yet every moment they were in danger, and if discovered by Apaches they would surely be killed. Nonetheless, the quest for gold had brought him here, and he meant to have what he had found. The women were in even worse danger than he, but they had elected to come along … Moreover, Adam Stark was a man who knew his own strength, his own capabilities, and he felt that with reasonable care he could keep his presence here unknown.

  His reasons for wanting the gold were two. He wanted the gold to buy and stock a ranch for himself and his wife, and he wanted the gold so that he might take Consuelo to San Francisco and give her the taste of luxury and easy living she seemed so much to want.

  For himself the desert was enough, the desert and that ranch and the freedon it offered.

  But he enjoyed the giving of pleasure to others, and to Consuelo whom he loved, he could not give too much. Adam Stark knew himself thoroughly, and he knew that his wife did not know him. Despite the fact that she now insisted she no longer loved him, he was sure she was mistaken, and he did love her. She had wanted a more obviously strong man, one with flash and demonstration. He suspected that Consuelo accepted the appearance of strength for its reality … and there was considerable difference.

  Adam had been in love with her from their first meeting, but he had been amazed when she accepted him.

  Miriam … he was never sure what it was Miriam wanted of life, but he was sure Miriam knew and that was all that mattered. A man was part of it, but a man for Miriam must be stronger than she, and she was a strong woman. He would have to be a lot of things, and Miriam was not one to accept less than her desires.

  Adam Stark turned his thoughts to the immediate problem. Their supplies, if augmented by game and what herbs they could gather, would last them, at most, two months. Connie knew the plants the Indians used for food, and whatever faults she might have, she was not lazy. She was, as old Fritz at Tucson had said, “a lot of woman.”

  The first requirement was shelter, a place of concealment, relatively close to water; and the second thing was to eradicate, so far as possible, the tracks left by their wagon and horses and mules. And then he must establish a pattern of operation.

  Adam Stark was a man of method, and half of his success here would result from proper habits of work and movement. He must plan for their protection and their food, and for getting out the gold itself. It was too easy to become careless, and to become careless in the desert, in Apache country, meant one would die suddenly.

  The desert can be a friendly place, but the rules of life in the desert are harsh, calling for understanding of certain fundamentals. Without that understanding, death could come quickly from heat, from thirst, from exhaustion, from rattlesnakes or Apaches. The rule of desert survival was to live with the desert and not against it, for all desert life is an accommodation to conditions that exist.

  Rising from the place where he sat, Adam Stark climbed Rockinstraw Mountain.

  It was the highest point in many miles. To the west the great mesas of Redmond Mountain and Squaw Peak dominated the landscape, but neither was as high as the mountain upon which he took up his position.

  To the northwest and just beyond the Salt River was the ominous-seeming bulk of Black Mesa. To the north, and less than three miles away, the Salt River took a deep horseshoe bend into which several dry washes opened.

  The western approaches to his position were walled off by the mesas except for two gaps, through one of which the Salt River flowed. To the east the country was broken by many canyons, most of them small, but from the top of Rockinstraw an observer could study most of the country in that direction. He started to turn away when his eye caught an odd shape among the canyons to the east, and not far off.

  Getting out his field glasses, over the end of which Stark had arranged a hood of stiff leather to prevent the sun from reflecting off the glass, he directed them at the canyon where he had seen that odd, straight-edged rock.

  The canyon itself was narrow, scarcely more than a wide crack in the earth, and nondescript in appearance, but from his place on top of the mountain he could see what appeared to be not a rock but the edge of a roof, and beyond it something that might be a church tower.

  He was suddenly excited. It was absurd, but there were stories of the Lost Mine of the Padres supposedly somewhere in this area. The Southwest was filled with stories of lost mines, and most of them pure myth, yet there was gold here, and this was supposed to be the proper area … although it might be anywhere in a vast region several hundred miles square, some of the roughest country in the world.

  It was typical of Adam Stark that he remained where he was until he had carefully checked the country around for any movement, any smoke, any sign of Indians. The more he studied the terrain from this vantage point, the more he realized that this must be the lookout they would continue to use.

  Few would suspect a lookout on top of Rockinstraw, and from here almost the entire country could be searched. If either white men or Apaches were seen approaching, all activity at the camp or the mine workings would cease until the strangers were gone from the vicinity.

  There were springs below the mountain. He located Sycamore Spring, of which an Apache friendly to white men had told him several years before, and he found what must be Mud Springs, of which he had also heard.

  Taking careful sightings and establishing landmarks from the top of the mountain, he went down, mounted his horse, and began his search. Yet even after locating the canyon from the tip of the mountain, it took him more than an hour to find it, so hidden was it.

  It required another hour to find a way to descend into the canyon, but by that time he had decided. This was to be their home.

  There was a tiny chapel, only large enough to seat ten or twelve persons, and there was a long building constructed of stone slabs and roofed with cedar timbers. There was also an adobe stable, partly in ruins. Nearby was an arrastra where the ore had been broken up to extract the gold.

  Ghostly silence gripped the canyon. No sound could be heard but the soft footfalls of his horse as he rode along the canyon in the sandy bottom.

  He dismounted and went into the long house. Pack rats had nested here, an owl slept on a low beam. The house was still dry, compact, perfect.

  Beyond the chapel in a corner of rocks he found a trickle of water falling into a basin some six feet in diameter. It was good water, clear, cold, and sweet.

  The following day Adam Stark brought his wife and sister to the canyon and they moved in. The wagon he concealed in the brush some three miles away, and covered it with brush in a clump of prickly pear.

  Miriam Stark put the bucket under the trickle of water and then straightened to wait until the bucket was full, shading her eyes toward Rockinstraw Mountain. It was time for Adam to be returning.

  In the three weeks they had
lived in the canyon only Adam had been to the diggings, and when either of the women suggested going, he persuaded them to forget it for the time being. Each day he returned with a sack or two of ore which he broke up for the highgrade they contained. He had found the mother lode … the very gold for which this settlement had been constructed, but which the padres themselves had never found.

  Methodical as always, Adam Stark devoted four hours each day to mining, and four hours to hunting or searching for food; the remainder of the time he gave to work around the canyon itself. In all his movements he was careful to avoid using the same route or leaving any tracks. Some part of each day was spent studying the country and its approaches from the top of Rockinstraw.

  Often that was done by Miriam, who had come to love the place and the far horizons it offered. Their brief periods of observation were not fool-proof. It was still possible for an enemy to approach the area without being seen, during a time when no watcher waited on top of the mountain. However, this would not be easy to do, for the possible approaches could be studied with care, and most of them could be covered to such an extent that a traveler could be seen when still far away.

  Miriam was a tall girl who stepped out in easy strides and had never known what it was to be tired from walking. At twentyeight she was of an age to be considered an old maid by everyone but herself, but to herself she felt no older than she had at twenty, and the fact that she was unmarried worried her not in the least.

  Long ago she had decided that marriage was not worth the trouble if one was married to any but the right man, and she was content to wait. The passing of years since she was sixteen had not dimmed her enthusiasm in the least.

  Several times men whom she respected had wished to marry her, and once she had even met a man more exciting than she would have wished, but she had good sense enough to know he was the wrong man, and he like the others had been sent away.

  Shading her eyes toward Rockinstraw she saw no sign of Adam, although it was about this time, at the end of his day, that he went to the peak for a last look around the country before dark. She knew just where on the mountain to look for him, though there were plenty of other places too on the mountain which offered concealment, and even some caves that had once been inhabited by cliff dwelling Indians. Tonight there was no sign of him.

  When the bucket was filled she carried it back to the house. Consuelo was preparing supper.

  “You see him?”

  “No … he’s probably on his way back.”

  “You think what we do if he does not come back? Suppose somebody kill him? What we do then?”

  “We would saddle up and ride to Tucson.”

  “I think ‘Paches come here,” Consuelo said gloomily. “I feel it. We are fool to stay.”

  “You wanted to go to San Francisco and buy a lot of fancy clothes … that was all you talked about in Tucson, so what did you expect him to do? He loves you.”

  “He is fool.”

  “Any man is a fool who will waste time on a woman who does not love him, and you don’t love Adam. He ought to take you back to Tucson and leave you there.”

  “He is weak. He is frighten. Once … once I think I love him, but I like a strong man. Adam is not strong.”

  “Adam has a sort of strength you’ll never understand, Connie, and he has gentleness, too. I hope the day comes when you realize the sort of man you married. He’s worth a dozen of that trash you seem to think are strong … like Tom Sanifer.”

  Consuelo’s eyes flashed. “You know why Adam bring me here? Because he was ‘fraid I run off with Tom Sanifer, that’s why … and he was right. If Tom had come back I would have gone where he asked me. Tom told Adam when he came back he’d take me away.”

  “In front of you?”

  “Yes … he told him. Adam, he just stand there and say, `I think you won’t do that.’

  Adam is a coward. If he is not a coward he would shoot Tom Sanifer then. He would shoot him dead, and then I love Adam. But he does nothing, he just looks at Tom and he say, `I think you not do that.’

  “What happened when Tom came back?”

  “He did not come back before you came, and then Adam bring us here. He bring us here because he is afraid that I will go with Tom.”

  “You don’t know your husband, Connie. Adam was not afraid. That is his way, and if you two are to be happy you must understand that … you are Latin, and your people are demonstrative. Adam is not.”

  Consuelo turned sharply around. “I do not care! You think I want to live all my life in the desert? I am woman! I want to have happiness! I want music, good food to eat, place to go! I want to dance, to sing, to be glad! There are men who will give me what I want.”

  “And after?”

  “Who thinks of after? He has gold now … why don’, we go? Why does he wait until we are all dead?”

  Miriam was folding the clothes she had washed. “In some ways,” she said quietly, “I think Adam is a fool. If he had used good sense he would have let you go with that man, and be glad that you were gone.”

  “Oh?” Consuelo turned on her angrily. “What do you know about man? I think you never have a man. I think you don’t know what to do with one if you have him.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t,” Miriam agreed, “but I could give it a try.”

  “You afraid of man. You afraid of what man do to you. I like a strong man, who wants a strong woman. I think Tom Sanifer was like that.”

  “From what they told me in Tucson, Tom Sanifer was a cheap bully in a loud shirt.”

  “You hear lie. He was a strong man … a big man.” Miriam wiped off the table top and began placing dishes for the evening meal. She had never known much about the relationship between Connie and her brother. Adam was not inclined to discuss his personal affairs, but she had guessed he was not happy. However, she was equally aware that he loved the girl he had married, and if Adam loved her that was enough for Miriam.

  “I think you don’t like me,” Consuelo said suddenly. “I think you hate me.”

  Miriam considered it, and then shook her head. “I don’t hate you. I might even like you if you weren’t married to Adam, but he deserves better than you’re giving him.”

  “Does he complain? Does he think I am not enough woman?” “There’s more to being a woman than what happens with a man in bed, believe me. You should learn that. What you can give a man in bed he can get from any street woman, what he wants from a wife is that, but much more. He wants tenderness, understanding, the feeling of working together for something. You’re stealing from him, Connie.”

  “I? Steal?”

  “You’re robbing him of that. If you don’t give him more than you’re giving him now, you’re not a wife, you’re a whore.” “So? You know nothing.”

  “He should have let Tom Sanifer have you. You’d have been better for him … he’d probably want nothing more from you. “

  “Some day,” Connie straightened and her eyes flashed, “some day I think I kill you.”

  “You won’t kill me. You won’t even try, Connie, because if you did I’d kill you.

  You might kill Adam because he loves you, but you won’t kill me, and you won’t even try.”

  “You think.”

  Boots scraped on the gravel outside and Adam Stark came in the door, smiling. “It was a good day,” he said, “the best yet.” “Supper’s ready.”

  He stood for a moment in the door looking around the room. It was unbelievable to him that so bare a place could have been made to look so much like a home, and with so little to do with. And it was home. Sometimes he was afraid he would never know any home but something such as this, and he wanted the good things of life for Connie and for himself.

  Considering it, he realized that somehow he never worried about Miriam, and that was wrong. He did not worry about her because she seemed so self-sufficient, so strong.

  She was like their mother had been, only more so, much more so. But he felt it was wrong to think of
a girl that way … it was wrong for any man to consider a girl self-sufficient, for men wanted to do something for a woman and when there was nothing they could do, there was no place for love.

  Love was, he suspected, much a matter of service. One loved and was loved, as one needed and was needed. Or so it seemed to him.

  Shadows were filling the canyon, and only the sky was bright. The canyon in which they lived was from thirty to sixty feet wide through much of its length. Only where the buildings stood was it a bit wider, but even there it seemed no wider, for the buildings were partly protected from above by the overhang of the cliffs.

  Except from that one point at the top of Rockinstraw, there was no way of seeing into the canyon, and the edges of the canyon were concealed by a scattered growth of prickly pear, ocotillo, and juniper, with here and there some scattered pin oaks.

  “Stay home tomorrow,” Consuelo suggested suddenly. “No.” Adam Stark drew back a home-made chair. “There’s work to do. Every day I don’t dig makes it a day more we have to stay … so I’d rather work.”

  “Aren’t you thinner?” Miriam asked. There were hollows in Adam’s cheeks she had never seen before.

  He smiled. “A man with two women … they fuss too much. Sure, I may be thinner.

  This is a hot country, and swinging a pick isn’t the way to put on beef.”

  “Did you see anything from the mountain?”

  Adam finished the mouthful of food he had taken and filled his cup before replying.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I thought once I saw a flash over north of here … like sunlight on a rifle barrel, but nobody would be up in that country.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Hunting … there’s nothing over there.” “Did you see it again? That flash, I mean?” “No. “

  “But you think it was somebody? You think someone was over there?”

  “Maybe … it was sudden, then gone. Might have been the sunlight on a sliding rock, or something.”

  “You don’t believe that?”

  “No,” he replied honestly, “I don’t.”

  “I am not afraid,” Consuelo said, and seated herself at the table. “I can shoot.”