Taggart (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  Suddenly, a bird veered up sharply, and instantly Taggart was behind the bole of a tree, his Winchester ready. Stark had not moved for fear the saddle would creak, but his pistol was out and balanced easy in his hand.

  After a moment, Taggart cat-footed it forward and paused. Not fifty feet away were three Apaches, but they faced in the opposite direction and were looking up the mountain ahead of them. This was the mountain where Miriam was and the Indians had seen something there. They moved away swiftly into the brush, climbing higher on the mountain.

  “Looks like we got here just in time,” Taggart said, and after another moment they went on.

  From their actions, he decided there were few Apaches in this area. No doubt they had spread out to cover a wider range, and on sighting the pack train they would send up a smoke to bring the others to the fight. If his guess was right, that smoke would be going up soon.

  The trees were thinning out, and before them loomed the bald mountain from which the mesa rose. Still all was quiet. Taggart led the horse beyond the last gathering of pines and into the sparse brush that straggled beyond the edge of the trees.

  Three Apaches sat their horses some hundred yards away, and an Indian on foot was talking with them. While Taggart and Stark waited, another Indian came from the woods and joined them. Suddenly, from high on the mountain, there was a rifle shot.

  The sound racketed down the rocks, and Taggart saw an Apache come tumbling down the slope, his body bringing up against a rock. The Indian struggled to pull himself erect, and then slumped back, losing hold on his rifle, which slid and rattled over the rocks.

  Instantly, the others started forward, and Taggart lifted his rifle and took careful aim. It was an easy shot, but he made it with care, wanting to be sure of this one at least of their enemies. He dropped the first Apache. Almost as if the rifle shot had been a magician’s wand, the others vanished.

  “Wait…” Taggart lifted a hand.

  They stayed still, and nothing stirred.

  “All right,” Taggart said, “let’s go!”

  He left the brush on the run, keeping low, feeling that due to the lay of the ground, he had a chance of reaching the trail without being seen. But he had taken no more than a dozen steps before a bullet splattered against a rock near him and whined away through the hot afternoon. Stark was firing, and then from the rim of the mesa above there was a burst of rifle that startled Taggart.

  Miriam was not alone! Pete Shoyer had come back, then.

  They went up the slope, Stark on his horse and Taggart running, and they climbed up the mesa covered by rifle fire from the rim. He raced up and was a dozen steps over the flat top before he stopped and turned. Miriam was at Adam’s side helping him from the saddle. The movement had started him bleeding. He looked over to Taggart. “I’ll be all right,” he said, and fainted.

  Consuelo went to him quickly. “Let me,” she said. And when Miriam hesitated, she added, “Por favor?”

  Miriam stepped back a little. “All right, Connie,” she said, and picked up her rifle again.

  Taggart stood facing Shoyer. “There’s plenty of them down there, but we’re getting out. This could be a death trap.”

  “You’ll go when I tell you,” Shoyer replied. “We haven’t a chance!”

  “We’re going out of here now, and we’re taking that chance,” Taggart said. “They’ll be sending up a smoke within the next few minutes and have half the Apaches in Arizona coming down on us. You do what you please. I’m taking them out of here, and I’m taking their gold with them.”

  The two men faced each other in the hot afternoon sun. For the first time Pete Shoyer saw Swante Taggart as he was, as something other than just another scalp to be taken in. He realized he was facing a tough and dangerous man…and a man whose side was right.

  Taggart put it plain. “The gold is not yours, Shoyer. The woman is not yours. You make another stab at taking either and you’re an outlaw.”

  “I’ve taken that step,” Shoyer replied coolly. “I’m taking both the woman and the gold, only I’m taking it all. You had your chance. I told you to stay out of my way and I’d stay out of yours….Well, you’re wanting trouble. You asked for it by staying on…now you’ve got it.”

  “Why, sure!” Taggart replied. “I’m ready for it. Make your move.”

  “Stop it!” Miriam had her rifle on them. “The first one who touches a gun I’ll kill. We’ve got Indians to fight.”

  “And I’ll kill the other one.” Stark was sitting up, pistol in hand.

  Taggart turned abruptly away and went to the mules, where he began tightening the loosened cinches. Pete Shoyer stared after him, his face dark and impassive, his eyes utterly cold.

  “I’ll kill you,” he said conversationally. “I’ll take your scalp back to New Mexico and collect on it.”

  Taggart ignored him. Stark switched to his own horse and Taggart mounted up. For a moment they glanced at each other.

  “Look!” Miriam pointed.

  A thin column of smoke was rising, and as it lifted, it broke.

  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 stick 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 y
ou 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.