the Tall Stranger (1982) Page 3

  "That will be where I come in." The man with the sharp features smiled pleasantly. "I'm John Kies, and I have six wagonloads of goods coming over the trail to open a store in our new town!"

  Silently, Rock Bannon turned away. There was no further use in talking. He caught Sharon's eye, but she looked away, her gaze drawn to Mort Harper where he sat now, talking easily, smoothly, planning the new homes, the new town.

  Bannon walked back to his blankets and turned in, listening to the whispering of the poplar leaves and the soft murmur of the water in the branch. It was a long time before he fell asleep, long after the last talking had died away in the wagon train, and when the fires had burned low.

  Chapter III

  When daylight came, Rock Bannon bathed, and saddled the stallion. Then carefully, he checked his guns. At a sound, he glanced up to see Sharon Crockett dipping water from the stream.

  "Good morning," he said. "Did you finally decide to stay?"

  "Yes." She stepped toward him. "Rock, why are you always against everything we do? Why don't you stay, too? I'm sure Morton would be glad to have you. He's planned all this so well, and he says we'll need good men. Why don't you join us?"

  "No, not this time. I stayed with the wagon train because I knew what you were going into. I wanted to help you--and I mean you. In what is to come, no one can help you. Besides, my heart wouldn't be in it."

  "You're afraid of this crabby old man?" she asked scornfully. "Morton says as soon as Bishop sees that we intend to stay, he won't oppose us at all! He's just difficult because he's old, and he has more land than he needs. Are you afraid of him?"

  Rock smiled. "You sure set a lot of store by this Harper fellow, don't you? Did he tell you that Bishop's riders were all crabby old men, too? Did Harper tell you why he carries Pete Zapata along with him?"

  "Who is he?" Sharon looked up, her eyes curious, yet resentful.

  "You've called me a killer," Bannon replied. "I have killed men. I may kill more, although I hope not. But Pete Zapata, that flat-faced half-breed who rides with Harper, is a murderer. He's a killer of the most vicious type, and the kind of man no decent man would have near him!"

  Her eyes flared. "You don't think Morton Harper is decent? How dare you say such a thing behind his back?"

  "I'll face him with it," Bannon said dryly. "I expect I'll face him with it more than once. But before you get in too deep, ask yourself again what he's getting out of all this. He goes in for talk of brotherly love, but he carries a gunman at his elbow!"

  He turned and swung into the saddle as she picked up her bucket. He reined in the horse at a call. It was Bob Sprague.

  "Hey, Rock! Want to come on west with us?"

  He halted. "You're going on?"

  "Uh-huh. Six wagons are going. We decided we liked the sound of what you said. We're pullin' on for Californy, and we'd sure like to have you with us!"

  Bannon hesitated. Sharon was walking away, her head held proudly. Did she seem to hesitate for his reply? He shrugged.

  "No," he said. "I've got other plans."

  Sharon Crockett, making frying-pan bread over the fire beside her wagon, stood up to watch Bob Sprague lead off the six wagons, the owners of which had decided not to stay. All farewells had been said the night before, yet now that time for the leavetaking had come, she watched uneasily.

  For years she had known Bob Sprague, ever since she was a tiny girl. He had been her father's friend, a steady, reliable man, and now he was going. With him went five other families, and among them some of the steadiest, soberest men in the lot.

  Were they wrong to take Morton Harper's advice? Her father, limping with the aid of a cane cut from the willows, walked back and stood beside her, his face somber. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Harper or Bannon, his hair silvery around the temples, his face gray with a slight stubble of beard. He was a fearless, independent man, given to going his own way, and thinking his own thoughts.

  Pagones walked over to them. "Did Bannon go along? I ain't seen him."

  "I don't think he went," Crockett replied. "Sprague wanted him to go."

  "No, he didn't go," said Satterfield, who had walked up to join him. Satterfield had been a frontier lawyer back in Illinois. "I saw him riding off down the canyon, maybe an hour ago."

  "You think there will be trouble?" Pagones asked.

  Satterfield shrugged. "Probably not. I know how some of these old frontiersmen are. They hate to see civilization catch up with them, but given time, they come around. Where's Harper?"

  "He went off somewhere with that dark-lookin' feller who trails with him," Pagones said. "Say, I'm glad Dud Kitchen didn't go. I'd sure miss that music he makes. He was goin', then at the last minute changed his mind. He's goin' down with Harper and Cap to survey that townsite."

  "Seem good to have a town again," Crockett said. "Where's it to be?"

  "Down where Poplar Canyon runs into Bishop's Valley. Wide, beautiful spot, they say, with plenty of water and grass. John Kies is puttin' in a store, I'm goin' to open an office, and Collins is already figurin' on a blacksmith shop."

  "Father, did you ever hear of a man named Zapata?" Sharon asked thoughtfully. "Pete Zapata?"

  Crockett looked at her curiously. "Why, no. Not that I recall. Why?"

  "I was just wondering."

  The next morning they hitched up the oxen and moved their ten wagons down Poplar Canyon to the townsite. The high, rocky walls of the canyon widened slowly, and the oxen walked on, knee deep in rich, green grass. Along the stream were willow and poplar, and higher along the canyon sides Sharon saw alder, birch, and mountain mahogany with here and there a fine stand of lodgepole pine. Tom Crockett was driving, so she ranged alongside, riding her sorrel mare.

  As they rounded the last bend in the canyon, it spread wide before them and she saw Morton Harper sitting his black mare some distance off. Putting the sorrel to a gallop, she rode down swiftly, hair blowing in the wind. Dud Kitchen was there with Zapata and Cap. They were driving stakes and lining up a street.

  Before them the valley dropped into the great open space of Bishop's Valley, and she rode on. Suddenly, rounding a knoll, she stopped and caught her breath.

  The long, magnificent sweep of the valley lay before her, green and splendid in the early-morning sun. Here and there over the grassland cattle grazed, belly deep in the tall grass. It was overpowering, it was breathtaking. It was something beyond the grasp of the imagination. High on either side lifted the soaring walls of the canyon, mounting into high ridges, snow-capped peaks, and majestic walls of gray rock.

  This was the cattle empire of Hardy Bishop. This was the place Rock Bannon spoke of with such amazing eloquence.

  She turned in her saddle at the sound of a horse's hoofs. Mort Harper rode up beside her, his face glowing.

  "Look!" he cried. "Magnificent, isn't it? The most beautiful view in the world. Surely that's an empire worth taking!"

  Sharon's head turned quickly, sharply. At something in Harper's eyes she caught her breath, and when she looked again at the valley, she was uneasy.

  "What--what did you say?" she asked. "An empire worth taking?"

  He glanced at her quickly, then laughed. "Don't pay any mind. I was thinking of Bishop, the man who claims all this. He took it. Took it from the Indians by main force." Then he added, "He's an old brute. He'd stop at nothing!"

  "Do you think he'll make trouble for us?" she inquired anxiously.

  He shrugged. "Probably not. He might, but if he does, we can handle that part of it. Let's go back, shall we?"

  She was silent during the return ride, and she kept turning over in her mind her memory of Bannon's question, "What's he going to get out of this?" Somehow, half hypnotized by Harper's eloquence, she had not really thought of that. That she thought of it now gave her a twinge of doubt. It seemed somehow disloyal.

  For three days life in the new town went on briskly. They named the town Poplar, and Kies's store was the first building up, and the s
helves were heavy with goods and needed things. Kies was smiling and affable. "Don't worry about payment!" he assured them. "We're all in this together! Just get what you need and I'll put it on the books, then when you get money from furs or crops you can pay me!"

  It was easy. It was almost too easy. Tom Crockett built a house in a bend of the creek among the trees, and he bought dress goods for Sharon, trousers for himself, bacon and flour. Then he bought some new tools.

  Those first three days were hard, unrelenting labor, yet joyful labor, too. They were building homes, and there is always something warming and pleasant in that. At the end of those first three days, Kies's store was up, Collins's blacksmith shop, Satterfield's office, and Hardy's Saloon and Theater. All of them pitched in, and all of them worked.

  Then one day, as Sharon was leaving Kies's store, she looked up to see three strange horsemen coming down the street. They were walking their horses, and they were looking around in ill-concealed amazement.

  Mulholland had come out behind her, and at the sight of him, one of the horsemen, a big, stern-looking man with a drooping red mustache, reined his horse around.

  "You!" he said. "What do you all think you're doin' here?"

  "Buildin' us a town," Cap said aggressively. "Any objections?"

  Red laughed sardonically. "Well, sir," he said, "I reckonI haven't, but I'm afraid the boss is sure goin' to raise hob!"

  "Who's the boss?" Cap asked. "And what difference does it make? This is all free land, isn't it?"

  "The boss is Hardy Bishop," Red drawled, glancing around. He looked approvingly at Sharon, and there seemed a glint of humor in his eyes. "And you say this is free land. It is, and it ain't. You see, out here a man takes what he can hold. Hardy come in here when all you folks was livin' fat and comfortable back in the States. He settled here, and he worked hard. He trapped and hunted and washed him some color, and then he went back to the States and bought cattle. Drivin' them cattle out here ten years ago was sure a chore, folks, but he done it. Now they've bred into some of the biggest herds in the country. I don't think Hardy's goin' to like you folks movin' in here like this."

  "Is he so selfish?" Sharon demanded. "Why, there's land here enough for thousands of people!"

  Red looked at her. "That's how you see it, ma'am. I reckon to your way of thinkin', back East, that might be true. Here, it ain't true. A man's needs run accordin' to the country he's in and the job he has to do. Hardy Bishop is runnin' cows. He expects to supply beef for thousands of people. To do that he needs a lot of land. You see, ma'am, if thousands of people can't raise their own beef, somebody's got to have land enough to raise beef for them. And Hardy, he come by it honest."

  "By murdering Indians, I suppose!"

  Red looked at her thoughtfully. "Ma'am, somebody's been tellin' you wrong. Plumb wrong. Hardy never murdered no Indians."

  "What's going on here?" Morton Harper stepped into the street. To his right was Pete Zapata, to his left Pike Purcell. Lamport lounged in the door of the store.

  "Why, nothin', mister," Red said thoughtfully. His gaze had sharpened, and Sharon saw his eyes go from Harper to Zapata. "We was just talkin' about land and the ownership of it. We're ridin' for Bishop, and--"

  "And you can ride right out of here!" Harper snapped. "Now!"

  Sharon was closer to the Bishop riders, and she heard the second man say softly: "Watch it, Red! That's Zapata!"

  Red seemed to stiffen in his saddle and his hand, which had started to slip off the pommel of the saddle, with no aggressive intention, froze in position. Without a word, they turned their horses and rode away.

  "That's the beginning," Harper stated positively. "I'm afraid they mean to drive us from our homes!"

  "They didn't sound much like trouble," Cap ventured, hesitantly. "Talked mighty nice!"

  "Don't be fooled by them!" Harper warned. "Bishop is an outlaw, or the next thing to it ..."

  Tom Crockett was a man who loved the land. No sooner had he put a plow into the deep, rich soil of the canyon bottom than he felt he had indeed come home. The soil, deep and black, heavy with richness, a land that had never known a plow. Working early and late, he had in the next day managed to plow several acres. The seed he bought from Kies, who seemed to have everything they needed.

  There were several hours a day he gave to working on the buildings the others were throwing up, but logs were handy, and all but Zapata and Kies worked on the felling and notching of them. Kies stayed in his store, and Zapata lounged close by.

  Morton Harper helped with the work, but Sharon noticed that he was never without a gun, and his rifle was always close by. At night in his saloon he played cards with Purcell and Lamport and anyone else who came around. Yet several times a day he managed to stop by, if only for a minute, to talk to her.

  He stopped one day when she was planting a vine near the door. He watched her for a few minutes, and then he stepped closer.

  "Sharon," he said gently. "You shouldn't be doing this sort of thing. You're too beautiful. Why don't you let me take care of you?"

  She looked at him, suddenly serious. "Is this a proposal?"

  His eyes flashed, then he smiled. "What else? I suppose I'm pretty clumsy at it."

  "No," she returned thoughtfully, "you're not clumsy at it, but let's wait. Let's not talk about it until everyone has a home and is settled in a place of their own."

  "All right," he agreed reluctantly. "But that won't be very long, you know."

  It was not until they were eating supper that night that her thoughts suddenly offered her a question. What about Morton's home? He had not even started to build. He was sleeping in a room behind the saloon, such in name only as yet, for there was little liquor to be had.

  The thought had not occurred to her before, but it puzzled and disturbed her. Tom Crockett was full of plans, talking of crops and the rich soil.

  The next day Morton Harper was gone. Where he had gone Sharon did not know, but suddenly, in the middle of the morning she realized he was not among them, and the black mare was gone, too. Shortly after noon she saw him riding into town, and behind him came six wagons, loaded with boxes and barrels. They drew up before the store and the saloon.

  He saw her watching and loped the mare over to her door.

  "See?" he said, waving a hand. "The supplies! Everything we need for the coming year, but if we need more, I can send a rider back to the fort."

  "Then you had them coming from the fort?" she asked. "You were far-sighted."

  He laughed, glancing at her quickly. "Well, I thought these things would sell in the mining camps out in California, but this is much, much better."

  In spite of herself, Sharon was disturbed. All day as she went about her work the thought kept recurring that those supplies offered a clue to something, yet she could find nothing on which to fasten her suspicions. Why should their arrival disturb her so much? Was it unusual that a man should start several wagon loads of supplies to California?

  Pagones stopped by the spring to get a drink. He smiled at her, pushing back his hat from a sweating brow. "Lots of work, ma'am. Your pa's sure getting in his plowing in a hurry. He'll have his seed in before the rest of us have started."

  "Pag, how do the supplies reach the gold fields in California?" Sharon said suddenly.

  He looked up over his second dipper of water. "Why, by sea, of course! Much cheaper that way. Why do you ask? Something botherin' you?"

  "Not exactly. Only ever since those wagons came in this morning, I've been wondering about them. Morton said he had started them for California, but thought they would sell better here. Why would he send them to California to sell when they can get supplies easier by sea?"

  "Might mean a little ready money," Pagones suggested. He hung the dipper on a shrub. "Now that you mention it, it does seem kind of strange."

  The expected trouble from Hardy Bishop did not materialize as soon as she expected. No other riders came near, although several times she noticed men, far out in
the valley. All Morton Harper's promises seemed to be coming true. He had said Bishop would not bother them.

  Yet all was not going too smoothly. The last wagons had brought a load of liquor, and several of the men hung around the saloon most of the time. Purcell was there every evening, although by day he worked on his place. Pete Zapata was always there when not off on one of his lonely rides, and the teamsters who had brought the wagons to Kies's store had remained, loitering about, doing nothing at all, but always armed. One of them had become the bartender.

  During all this time her work had kept Sharon close to the house, and there had been no time for riding. Time and again she found herself going to the door and looking down toward the cluster of buildings that was fast becoming a thriving little village. And just as often she looked back up the trail they had followed when first coming into Poplar Canyon.

  Not even to herself would she admit what she was looking for. She refused to admit that she longed to see the steel-dust stallion and its somber, lonely rider. She had overheard him say he would not leave, yet where was he?

  The sound of horse's hoofs in the trail outside brought her to the cabin door. It was Mary Pagones, daughter of George Pagones, who had long since proved himself one of the most stable men in the wagon train.

  "Come on, Sharon--let's ride! I'm beginning to feel cramped with staying down here all the time."

  Sharon needed no urging, and in a few minutes they were riding out of the settlement toward the upper reaches of the canyon.

  "Have you seen that Pete Zapata staring at the women the way he does?" Mary asked. "He fairly gives me the creeps!"

  "Somebody said he was a gunman," Sharon ventured.

  "I wouldn't doubt it!" Mary was an attractive girl, always gay and full of laughter. The freckles over her nose were an added attraction rather than otherwise. "Dud doesn't like him at all. Says he can't see why Harper keeps him around."

  As they rode out of Poplar Canyon, an idea suddenly occurred to Sharon, and without voicing it she turned her mare toward their old encampment, but as they burst through the last line of trees, disappointment flooded over her. There was no sign of Rock Bannon.