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

against the sky.
If there was no water in Tonto Creek, he must try for Turkey Spring, and once in
the canyons of the Cherry Creek country Shoyer would never find him. He knew that
country.
But he was fooling himself if he believed he would get
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farther than the Tonto without water. If there was no water there, he would do as
well to make a stand there, for he would die anyhow. His horse would go no further
than the Tonto .. . if he made it that far. And a man without a horse in this country
was a dead man.
Nothing moved but the wind. His hand carelessly brushed a rock exposed to the sun,
and it burned like a red-hot iron. His eyes searched the desert again. He should
be moving on, yet he was reluctant to stir, and when at last he started to mount,
he stopped, frozen in place.
Not two hundred yards away an Apache warrior sat on a spotted pony.
Swante spoke softly to his horse and waited, holding very still, for to move was
to be seen.
The Apache started his pony and walked it slowly forward, crossing the very trail
Taggart would have taken had he gone forward at once. And had he gone on without
stopping, the Apache would now be on his trail, for his tracks would have been seen.
He heard the movement before he saw them, and when they came up out of the juniper
and ocotillo along the slope there were at least forty of them, including children
and squaws. No less than seventeen were fighting men.
Holding his breath, he waited, careful not to look directly at them for fear he might
draw their attention. They moved slowly, for with them was a travois with a sick
or wounded man upon it.
When they had gone by he sat down on a rock in the shade and waited there for what
might have been twenty minutes. When he did start moving he walked beside the steeldust
to lower the silhouette they would make against the sky.
No sound disturbed the blazing afternoon. He was sodden with weariness and weaving
as he walked. Behind him the led gelding stumbled, and he knew that even the tough
mountain horse was nearing the end of its strength. If there was no water in Tonto
Creek that would be the end of it ... they could go no further.
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TAGGART 15
When they had walked what he believed to be a mile, he paused. There was no air stirring
below the rim of the hills, and it was stifling. It was, he guessed, more than a
hundred and twenty in the shade, if a man could find shade.
The green line marking the creek was nearer now, but he could see no gleam of water
among the trees.
His shirt was stiff with caked sweat and dust. He started on, and the horse, after
one complaining tug on the reins, followed after.
Taggart was hard put to keep his feet. Heat waves shimmered before him, and at times
he had difficulty in bringing his eyes to a focus. He was a big man, unusually quick
on his feet, and when he started to stumble he knew he was in trouble. And then he
fell.
For a long minute he lay sprawled on the ground. Then he got his palms under him
and pushed up, getting to his knees, and then to his feet, where he stood swaying.