"TAGGART" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

It was a bad time for gun trouble. New Mexico was in a ferment over the activities
of young Billy Bonney, who was rousting around in the middle of a shooting war up
in Lincoln County. The Bennett brothers had money, cattle, and strong political influence,
while Swante Taggart had only a fast horse. A man must use what he has.
Outlawed by the state for what had been a justifiable killing, Swante Taggart and
his fast horse headed west. A pack horse carried what supplies were at hand when
the dream ended.
The stop at Knight's Ranch had been his mistake. Until that time he had avoided trails,
but by the time he rode within sight of Knight's he was out of coffee, out of food,
and he desperately needed sleep. Until then nobody had any idea what had become of
Taggart.
Two days later when Pete Shoyer came in, returning from delivering a body to the
sheriff in Silver City, he heard Taggart was wanted and discovered a man of the description
had been at Knight's.
Crown King had seemed the obvious solution for Taggart. It was a mine, a scattering
of other prospect holes, and a few buildings. Scarcely a town, it was off the main
trail and offered a job for a man who could use a single-jack and drill. Taggart
had learned how to do that in California when he was ten, and he was doing all right
until Pete Shoyer rode into town.
Within minutes, while Shoyer was cutting the dust from his throat in the Crown King
saloon, Swante Taggart rode out. He went up Poland Canyon, switched back down Horsethief
Canyon, rode through the Bradshaw Mountains, and watered his horse in the cold waters
of Agua Fria opposite Squaw Creek Mesa.
Half a dozen canyons open in the raw side of Squaw Creek Mesa, each seeming to offer
a means of escape, but actually the
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only trail led up the wall and not through the inviting canyons. He believed he had
an hour's lead and he might have more, and what hoof-prints the horse might leave
in the clear stream bottom would be gone by that time, so Swante Taggart had ridden
upstream for two miles and left the water on a ledge of rock. He camped that night
close to Shirt-Tail Springs, with Turret Peak looming to the northwest.
It was here only a few years earlier that Major Randall's soldiers had scaled the
fortress-like peak in the night to surprise a band of Apaches in their seemingly
invulnerable hiding place.
That had been several days ago, and now he was here, weaving heavily down the long
slope toward Tonto Creek with the heat waves dancing weirdly before him, with cracked
lips, a parched throat, and a prayer for water in the Creek. His head ached, throbbing
heavily, and the sun blazed in the brassy vault of the sky. The ground was hot beneath
his boots.
The Apache came out of the ground as if born from it, and he came shooting, but even
an Apache can be wrong. The mistake killed him.
The dust-brown figure leaped, the sunlight caught on his rifle barrel, and Swante
Taggart, who had used a fast draw before this, felt the gun buck in his hard palm.
The mountains tossed the sound like a bouncing ball. Then the sound faded and died,
and Swante Taggart stood staring at a dead Indian and knew he had been lucky. There
had been no time for thought ... his reaction had been instantaneous, the result
of years of practice and awareness of danger.
The Apache pony hated the white man's smell and drew back from him. There was no
water skin on the pony, and Taggart took time only to secure the rifle and ammunition.