Taggart (1959) (18 page)

"No." Taggart felt positive about that. "It isn't like him. He wouldn't let me go.

Not unless he found something better." The mules started and they followed after
,
moving slowl
y
through the darkness. Several times they halted briefly, and twice they changed directio
n
in the darkness. Taggart looked at the stars and swore, and then he glanced at th
e
bulk of the cliff on their right.

He drew up sharply as the idea hit him, but at first it seemed impossible. Then h
e
said to Miriam, "Wait here!" and rode swiftly forward.

The mules were strung out far too much, and when he reached the head of the train
,
the mule there was calmly chewing at a clump of sage and there was no one anywher
e
near.

"Stark?" he called softly into the night, but the night gave back no answer. He trie
d
it again, just a little louder, and still there was no reply.

He called Shoyer's name then, and Consuelo's, but no answer came. Turning swiftly
,
suddenly frightened for Miriam, he rode back.

She sat on her saddle waiting. "What is it, Swante?" she asked, "What's wrong?"

It was the first time she had used his first name. He realized that on a level o
f
consciousness somewhere above and beyond the immediate problem.

"We're alone," he said, "they're gone." "Gone?"

The word had no meaning to her in that moment. They could not be gone. It was impossible.

"I don't understand. Who is gone?" "All of them ... we're alone."

She was silent for a moment. "I heard you call ... but where could they go? Why woul
d
they go?"

He was not listening, he was thinking. There was no sound in the night except th
e
crunch of a mule's jaws as it munched on some of the brush along the trail.

It was completely dark, the trail was strange to them all, and that Apaches wer
e
around was unlikely, yet the three other riders had dropped from sight as if the
y
had fallen off the edge of the world.

To look for tracks in this darkness was beyond reason, and to make a light woul
d
be foolhardy.

"Miriam," he said quietly, "we're in trouble."

Chapter
Eleven.

A t best they had come no more than eight or nine miles from the Apache rancheri
a
at Mud Springs. Their route ha
d
been difficult, a trail strange to them, with many brief halts. To wander about no
w
searching for tracks would be to destroy whatever trail might have been left. O
n
the other hand, the three might have gone on ahead for some reason and would soo
n
return ... in fact, they might believe Taggart and the mules were following.

Yet following where? Before them all lay in darkness, and no clearly defined trai
l
could be seen.

"What will we do?" Miriam asked. "Adam would not just go off and leave us."

"We'll wait," Taggart replied.

Every minute of travel was a minute added to their lives, but in the darkness the
y
might get into a cul-de-sac from which no escape was possible.

Bunching the mules together took only a few minutes, but even in the darkness h
e
detected something was wrong. Working around among the mules he discovered one wa
s
missing. It was one of the mules carrying gold.

"I don't like it," he said in a low tone. "It isn't just them now ... there mus
t
be around twenty thousand dollars on that mule."

Miriam dismounted and stood close to him in the silence as they strained their ear
s
for some sound, some evidence that the others were not far off.

Here among the high peaks it was cool. Now a late moon rose, and the bare rocks too
k
on a weird effect in the pale light.

Below and all around them there were pines, and a wind moved among them, where th
e
sound of its humming seemed like faint music.

Leaving Miriam on watch with the mules, Taggart went ahead, keeping to one side o
f
the direct line they had followed, and searching ahead, but there was nothing.

To go or to stay? Taggart paused on the mountainside, pondering. To remain here lon
g
was to ask for death. He made his decision suddenly. They must go on. They must fin
d
some place where the mules could be hidden. They had food, and with luck they coul
d
remain in hiding for days.

He walked back to Miriam. "Mount up," he said, "we're going on."

She was not the sort to protest, to demand explanations, or to waste time in needles
s
discussion or suggested alternatives. It was enough that Taggart had decided, an
d
she trusted that decision.

They moved out with Taggart in the lead and Miriam close behind, only this time th
e
mules were on a lead rope.

The moonlight gave them some visibility. Taggart led cautiously, searching for som
e
sign of the others, and at the same time watching for a place where they could hol
e
up for a few hours, and give themselves time to make a quick survey of the area
,
in the hope of finding out what had happened to Adam Stark and the others.

The trail suddenly started up the cliff. It went twenty yards ahead, switched bac
k
for twice that distance, and then went forward again. Although the cliff was no mor
e
than five hundred feet up, it took them nearly an hour to negotiate the climb. Fro
m
the condition of the trail Taggart was sure nobody had been over it before them.

Twice he was forced to dismount and shift slabs of rock from the trail, fallen ther
e
long ago.

At the summit they drew up to catch their wind. Around them stretched a vast an
d
unbelievable moonscape of peaks and shoulders and serrated ridges, bathed in pal
e
moonlight cut by canyons of darkness, and vast gulfs that were only black.

It was an eerie place, and the wind hummed weirdly among the scattered pines.

A few hundred yards farther on Taggart saw a flat-topped mesa, low and broad, risin
g
above the plateau they had reached. They were no higher than Rockinstraw, which h
e
could see off to the northwest. Pushing on, he looked toward the low mesa and turne
d
off toward it. He left Miriam, and went on ahead and searched until he found a wa
y
to the top.

The mesa was fifteen or twenty acres in extent, and at one side of it was a low place
,
deep enough to allow concealment for the pack train. There a pool of water had gathere
d
from the recent rain, covering perhaps half an acre, but from what he could see
,
only a few inches deep.

Leading the pack train to the top, Taggart concealed them in the small basin. The
n
he sat with Miriam at the edge of the mesa, overlooking the country. The air wa
s
very cool, the sky held only a few scattered clouds, and below them all was darkness
,
except for the peaks and ridges which stood out of the blackness like islands i
n
a dark sea. Above them, all was sky. They were lost here, as if on another world.

Miriam spoke suddenly. "Pete Shoyer has killed men for a few hundred dollars of rewar
d
money. Wouldn't such a man kill for what gold was on one of those mules?"

Swante Taggart drew a long breath. It was this he had been considering. There wer
e
men he knew who would not kill except in the name of the law ... but there were other
s
who would. The distinction between the peace officers of the time and the outla
w
was either sharply drawn or it was scarcely drawn at all.

"Consuelo spoke to me," he said, "so maybe she spoke to Shoyer next. She's a might
y
scared girl, Miriam. She has no faith whatever in Adam's ability to protect her.

She wanted me to take her away."

"What about Adam?" "That's what worries me."

He got to his feet. "I've got to leave you here alone, and whatever you hear, whateve
r
you see, whatever you may think
,
TAGGART' 105 you've got to stay right here. I've got to be sure you're here ...
a
nd I don't think you'll ever be found here. But stay below the rim, stay out o
f
sight."

"How long is it until daybreak?"

He glanced at the stars. "We've an hour at least, maybe close to two hours. At thi
s
altitude, being on top of everything around, it will come sooner for us than dow
n
below, but I've got to go down there and take a look. If anything's happened to Adam
,
I'll find him."

"All right," she said quietly.

He tightened the cinch on his saddle and stepped into the leather. "And Miriam, kee
p
your eyes open and keep your rifle close. It isn't only the Apaches you have to worr
y
about now. There's Shoyer."

"You think he will come back?" "Maybe."

"A man who would kill for one mule-load of gold might not hesitate to kill for hal
f
a dozen ... is that what you mean?" "Adam isn't dead. I'm sure of that. No shot wa
s
fired, an
d
there was no sound of fighting up ahead, no action at all that we could hear. I'
m
sure he is not dead."

Although he said that, he was thinking that a knife could be silent, a blade woul
d
make no sound.

Would Consuelo want Adam killed? He doubted it, but in her panic of fear ... No
,
he would not believe it. Shoyer might kill, but not Consuelo. She would not kil
l
Adam herself, nor want him killed.

But the question about Pete Shoyer worried Taggart. He had known such men before
,
and most of them were utterly ruthless in killing anyone suspected of crime, ye
t
were often curiously reluctant to kill for any other reason. Pete Shoyer had th
e
name of being a driving and relentless man, but so far as Taggart had heard ther
e
were no killings against him except those involved in the capture of criminals o
r
wanted men. But now...?

Miriam came and stood beside his horse, clinging to his hand. "Swante ... come back."

"I will."

He pressed her hand, and then rode away, taking his horse down the steep trail t
o
the plateau and along it to the trail up which they had come. He was more cautiou
s
now. Instinctively he was wary of a trail over which he had once come, and it wa
s
not his way to return by the same route, where an enemy might be lying in wait. A
t
the moment, though, there was no alternative ... he knew of no other trail, nor ha
d
he time to search for one in the darkness.

But he was aware that he rode into a double danger. In his own mind he was sure tha
t
Pete Shoyer had in some way put Adam Stark out of the running. And if Pete Shoye
r
had gone off the rails for a woman and a mule-load of gold, it would be like hi
m
to come back for the rest. Yet what had he said?

"If we should be separated you go your way. You leave me alone and I'll leave yo
u
alone."

His statement to Taggart had sounded like a declaration of peace between them ...
w
hich meant that Taggart was free of pursuit, that he could go his own way. All h
e
had to do was leave Shoyer alone.

Looked at from the present situation, it appeared that Pete Shoyer had already mad
e
his plans, had reached some agreement with Consuelo, and that even now they wer
e
moving somewhere down the dark canyons.