Taggart (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 4

  The tracks had been wiped out, but not by one skilled in tracking. Searching, he found a partial hoof-print under the edge of a bush…the wagon had been drawn by mules.

  Returning to the steeldust, he lighted another smoke and considered the situation. Whoever had brought the wagon this far could have taken it farther; hence it was logical to suppose that the driver had reached his destination, or close to it.

  Had the wagon been abandoned because his animals had been killed, at least a skeleton would have remained.

  What would a man be doing in this country? Cattle were impractical with the Apaches on the loose, although here and there a few were trying it. But he had seen no cattle, nor any signs of them.

  Mining?

  That might explain the wagon, brought in to carry supplies and equipment. Why not bring it in on mules? Or horses? But if the man did have a woman along, he might prefer a wagon, or if he were bringing a large amount of supplies, planning a long stay.

  For one man alone or even a half-dozen men to remain in this country during Apache trouble meant a secure position, well-fortified, well-supplied.

  Of course, it was always possible the wagon had been so cumbersome they had decided to abandon it, but then the wagon would most likely have been left in the open, wherever the driver had stopped. There was no reason to conceal the wagon unless the owner was expecting to remain nearby, and expecting to use it again.

  The dryness of the cut brush indicated that the wagon had been left there something around a month ago, and if the driver of that wagon was not dead, he must be somewhere within a radius of three or four miles, and the chances were it would be less.

  Where one man stopped another could. That man would need water, grass, a place of hiding or defense. It would be a place, more than likely, where a man could hole up for a while.

  While the steeldust cropped at the mesquite brush, Swante Taggart continued to study the situation, remembering the terrain he had examined so carefully. He had expected there would be springs near Rockinstraw, and it must be near one of these that the man had located.

  At present Taggart was hidden from observation and his horse was contented with the brush. Taking his rifle, canteen, and field glasses, he found a way to the top of the bank and lay down among the rocks and brush.

  It was very hot…no sound disturbed the clear air. The smells of hot, dry grass and mesquite came to him. Shielding the field glasses with his sombrero so they would not reflect sunlight, he began a careful study of the country ahead of him. But after some time he had found nothing—no clue, no sign of anything, any object that did not belong, no evidence of a trail anywhere, nothing to indicate the presence of human beings.

  Returning to the brush, he loosened the saddle girth and picketed the gelding. Then he stretched out in the shade and slept.

  No more than an hour had passed when he opened his eyes. Near him the horse dozed. He got to his feet and, taking the glasses, went back to his former position and began a new study of the country, realizing that a change in the position of the sun would often change the looks of an area in a decided manner.

  He should search, but he did not like the idea of leaving tracks around that might be seen by either Apaches or Pete Shoyer.

  More and more his attention was drawn back to Rockinstraw. The mountain loomed above everything in a country that was almighty broken up. From its peak a man could get quite a view, but he could also get himself shot at.

  By now it was late afternoon. Within an hour or two, if anyone was around they would be preparing something to eat, and that meant a fire, and a fire meant smoke. Very little smoke if the fellow used dry wood, but smoke just the same. And smoke could be smelled and seen.

  Swante Taggart rolled a cigarette and lit up. He would wait…he was sure he was right. Somebody was hidden close by, and a hiding place that good would be good for him also.

  He would wait.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Spanish fathers who had located the canyon of the lost mine had mistaken float for an outcropping, and without doubt there had been a lot of the float, and some large boulders included. Few of the padres had any knowledge of mining or of the occurrence of ores, and what they found had apparently been broken off from high up on the mountain, from which point it had rolled or floated down and wedged among other rocks. Later, though realizing their mistake, they had failed to discover the true source of the gold.

  Adam Stark knew they had failed because he found evidence of their efforts and their failure, but he had been more fortunate because he had known considerably more about mining geology.

  Whether the padres had given up and returned to Mexico or had been murdered by Apaches he had no idea, although he suspected the former. Certainly, there was no evidence of any battle at the canyon of the chapel. There were no skulls, no human bones of any kind, and no weapons lying about. If they had been killed it would have been after leaving this place. At no time had he found any Indian remains in the canyon itself.

  Considering his own situation, Adam Stark knew that two months at the present rate would leave him with more than a hundred thousand in free gold, all sacked up and ready to take out…if they lasted that long.

  Neither Consuelo or Miriam had ever seen the source of the gold, and he had no intention that they should. His excuse had been accepted without discussion or apparent curiosity: the fewer tracks in the vicinity, the better.

  The truth was that every instant he worked at the vein his life was in danger, and not from Apaches, but from the nature of the rock itself. He was undermining the base of a leaning tower of rock that might at any time come down, burying him beneath a heap of rubble.

  The ever-present risk of discovery by Apaches or by white outlaws occupied the minds of the two women until all else seemed relatively unimportant. But they lived a day-to-day existence, never allowing these dangers to become a settled fear.

  Neither of them considered the problem of the mining itself. To their few questions Adam had been casual in comment. “It’s slow work,” he said, “mainly hacking it out of the native rock and getting it down the mountain.”

  He had left it at that, and so had they. The actual fact of the matter was something quite different.

  In his quest for the gold, Adam Stark had followed the alluvial fan up the side of the mountain. The fan was merely a cascade of rocky debris tumbled down the steep slope as a result of thousands of years of weathering on the heights above.

  Struggling upward, compelled to use his hands in places because of the steepness of the slope, he had come at last to the source of the gold in a band of rotten quartz all of six feet wide and cobwebbed with gold.

  At a glance he knew the discovery was almost unbelievable, and if it was from broken-off bits of this rock that the padres had taken their gold, he could appreciate what excitement they must have felt.

  Yet even in his moment of success some warning in the beetling brow of cliff kept him from going forward. His innate caution gripped him, and he drew back a little to examine the situation more carefully. Wary of what he saw, he circled the granitic upthrust and then climbed to the ridge behind it where he could look down upon the roof. What he saw left him dry-mouthed and jittery.

  Obviously the upthrust was part of a much older range, one long weathered and worn, suffering from shock and twisting, until finally this tower of rock had been violently upthrust to leave it standing a shaky ruin among younger and sturdier peaks. In the processes of the past the rock had been shattered and riven by mighty forces until it had become a miner’s nightmare.

  With enormous wealth here for the taking, every single ounce must be taken at the risk of death. One stick of powder might bring the whole crumbling mass down in a heap, and it towered three hundred feet or more above its base. The roof of the mass was riven with cracks, seamed with breaks like the wall of an ancient buildin
g left standing after heavy shelling.

  Walking back to the vein, Adam Stark found he could actually break off pieces with his fingers, and this vein itself lay on the downhill side and at the very base of the tower of rock. The upthrust leaned at such an angle that a man working at the vein would be cutting his way into the very foundation of the tower, and a single blow might bring the whole mass down upon him.

  Furthermore, if the towering mass should fall, even if he were not under it, the vein would be hopelessly buried under thousands of tons of rock and beyond his power to recover.

  Adam Stark had backed off from the pinnacle and, seating himself on a rock, had lighted his pipe. A man might, he reflected, take tons out of there without it collapsing upon him…or it might come down with the first blow. Yet he knew that, wanting that gold as he did, he had no choice.

  In his own mind he was sure Connie loved him as he did her, and he believed that once she had her chance to see something of the world outside, she would return to what she knew, content to settle down. She was, after all, a Mexican woman, and a Mexican woman without a husband is nobody among her people. She becomes an object of sympathy from some and contempt from others, and is nothing to herself. If she does not have a husband she has failed in woman’s main objective. He knew that Consuelo believed that, and believed it deeply, but hers had been a life of struggle since the beginning, and what she wanted was her moment of glamor.

  Maybe he was a fool, but he knew that without Consuelo nothing made sense, and he wished her to have what she wanted, and he wanted also the pleasure of giving. All of that depended on the gold that lay before him.

  Studying the tower of rock, he knew he had already accepted its challenge. He was going after the gold.

  But even as he made his decision, he knew that there were two things he must guard against. The first was tolerance of danger that might bring carelessness, and the second was going back for that little bit more that would kill him.

  He would have to make his decision now, and stay with that decision. He must decide on how much he wanted and take no more, but he must always be prepared to quit with less if the situation demanded.

  He wanted a hundred thousand dollars.

  It seemed a lot. When he had started this trip he would have been content with ten thousand, and until a few minutes ago he would have settled for that much. Now he was already in danger because his demands had risen in accordance with the amount of gold in sight.

  There must be nearly a thousand dollars lying in rocky debris upon the slope right under the tower, a thousand dollars just for the picking up.

  He would take that first. He would gather it, sack it up, take it down to the canyon, and get out the gold. Then if anything happened to him, his wife and sister would still have enough money to take them to wherever they wished to live.

  Even then, having made his decision, he did not go forward, but sat there and refilled his pipe. The chances were that if the tower collapsed he would be caught beneath it, unless he could get a running start. No man could run in the soft gravel of the upper slope, so he would take slabs of rock and build a walk. Then, if he had a chance to run he would not be bogged down in sand.

  He must be deliberate in all his actions, and he must never forget for an instant the towering mass that loomed above him; for a split second of hesitation would mean death and burial under tons of rock.

  Rising, he knocked out his pipe and gathered together a sack of the loose ore, all of it larded with gold. When the sack was filled with as much as he could carry, he put it on his shoulder and started down the mountain by an easier route his eyes picked out on the slope.

  The padres had used an arrastra to break up the rock and get out the gold, but he dared take no such risk. The rumble of an arrastra could be heard for some distance, and he had no desire to attract attention. The blows of a hammer were more easily muffled, although the process was slower.

  Returning to the canyon of the chapel, Adam considered his plans. The mining town of Globe was but a short distance to the south but he had never visited the town and did not plan to. His visit would arouse discussion and might lead someone to follow him back out of curiosity. They had brought with them a good supply of beans, rice, flour, and dried fruit, besides other staples, and this, augmented by what game he could trap and the edible plants Consuelo knew so well, would have to suffice.

  The opening of the small canyon, partly concealed by desert growth, presented an uninteresting aspect that promised nothing to a rider passing by. Any desert traveler had passed hundreds of such arroyos or canyons with scarcely a passing glance. It was in a small cove at the upper end of the canyon that they pastured their horses and mules.

  * * *

  —

  Consuelo stepped from the door when Miriam and Adam came down from the mountain. She held a rifle in her hand. “Somebody comes?” she asked.

  “Apaches,” Miriam said. “And a white man.”

  Consuelo laughed. “It is Tom Sanifer. He comes for me, just like he said.”

  “Then he’d better watch his hair,” Adam replied dryly. “He’s in a fair way to lose it.”

  “He will come. You see. Tom Sanifer loves me.”

  Adam placed his rifle beside the door and dipped a gourd dipper into the wooden bucket beside the door. He looked across it at his wife. “And you’d go?”

  She returned his look mockingly. “Who knows? Maybe you keel him. Maybe he keel you, and then I must go with him.”

  “I think you’ll stay,” Adam said quietly.

  “Here?” Her temper flared. “You think I like this place? You think this is good place for woman? Just give me one chance and I go…queeck!”

  She took her rifle and walked to the mouth of the canyon to keep watch while Miriam and Adam ate. When Adam had finished he lighted his pipe and, taking his rifle, went out to relieve Consuelo.

  She came back, and began the work of cleaning up while Miriam went on with her meal. As she ate, she read from one of their carefully hoarded books.

  Consuelo stared at her. “Always you read…you no want a man, you want a book. You want even to sleep with a book!”

  “It might be better than some men,” Miriam replied dryly. “And you don’t have to wash socks for a book.”

  When she had finished eating she walked to the end of the canyon. Adam stepped down from the rocks. “I believe they’ve gone on,” he said, “but we can’t be sure.”

  She went up among the rocks and found her place—a place that allowed her to hear anyone approaching, yet her own shadow was lost against the blacker shadow of the rocks.

  Night had come while she ate. Darkness lay now like velvet upon the land, and overhead the sky was midnight blue and scattered with stars, with only an occasional cloud. She knew the desert night, knew the amazing clarity of it, and all the little sounds the desert had that belonged to it, and she loved these hours beneath the stars.

  They rarely stood watch, and that only when someone had been seen in the vicinity, and on those occasions they often stood guard most of the night. On one occasion they stood watch for three days and nights.

  When Stark went back and entered the house, Consuelo turned to face him. “When we go, Adam? How much longer do we ’ave to stay here?”

  “Two months…a little less or a little more.”

  “You know what I think? I think we never go. I think we die here in this canyon. I think so.”

  “The gold is richer now.”

  She ignored the comment. “You know what Apache do to man they catch? I have seen it. They tie him to a cactus with strips of green rawhide, and when it dries it tightens and pulls the thorns into a man. He dies…after a long time and much pain.”

  “You saw that?”

  “I saw…and what they do to a woman I have seen. Before I was six, I have seen it.”r />
  “I never saw anything like that. Hope I never do.”

  Consuelo put a glass on a shelf. “Why Miriam no marry? She afraid?”

  “Miriam?” Adam chuckled. “I don’t think the devil himself could frighten Miriam. No, she just knows the kind of man she wants and she isn’t going to settle for less, no matter how long she has to wait.”

  “I think she is fool.”

  “We’re all fools after a fashion. Look at me…I gave up a law practice because I wanted a ranch of my own, I wanted to be in the cattle business. So I studied geology and came west to find the gold to buy the ranch…like a lot of other dreamers.”

  “I think you fool.” She paused. “Adam, we are no good for each other. Once I think I love you, but I was wrong.”

  “Maybe you expect too much of me, Connie. Or maybe you’re looking for the wrong things in a marriage.”

  She stared gloomily from the window. “Maybe I am bad. Maybe I am meant for bad girl. You are good man but you are frighten, Adam. You are frighten of Tom Sanifer.”

  There was no anger in Adam. “He must have impressed you, Connie. That’s why I worry about you, because you’re impressed by the wrong things.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Tom Sanifer was a fine-looking man, but he was an empty man. I’m afraid you mistake the appearance of strength for strength itself.”

  “The first chance I get, I leave you, Adam. I am finish. You don’t say I don’t tell you. And you have no right to speak of Tom Sanifer. He told you he would come back for me, and he told you he would kill you.”

  “It is a small man who talks big before women. If you must leave me, let it be for a really good man, not an empty bucket like Tom Sanifer.”

  * * *

  —

  Miriam stood in the desert silence, listening for sounds she hoped not to hear, sounds long practice had taught her to distinguish from the usual night sounds of the desert.