Taggart (1959) by Louis L'amour Page A

attentio n to the strangeness of the mountains. It would wipe out tracks . . . this he remembered , and praised the storm even when he was not sure what else might come of it.
    If Pete Shoyer was out there now he must be hunting shelter, but Taggart saw nothing , heard nothing. N "It comes fast, I think," Consuelo said, but she made n o move to go. He stood quietly beside her. "You go soon?" she asked suddenly.
    "A few days, a week ... maybe more. I do not know yet." "You are lucky. I hate i t here . . . I hate it!"
    Taggart made no reply, watching the black thunderheads billowing up in vast cloud y castles, ominous and threatening, and beneath them the advancing legions of the rain.
    "It is time to go," he said, and taking her elbow started down the mountain.
    After a few steps the demands of the trail drew them apart, and he was careful no t to come close to her again. They went down the slope, half-walking, half-running , excited by the oncoming storm and the hurry for shelter.
    Once, pausing for breath on a narrow ledge before starting down an edge of trai l into the canyon itself, Consuelo turned her dark eyes on him. "I think I go soon.
    I have feeling ... if I stay here, I die here. I am 'fraid."
    She went down the trail ahead of him, and with a last look around he hurried dow n into the canyon. When they reached the door of the stone house a few scattered drop s were already falling, and as they ducked inside the rain swept down with a roar.
    These mountain rains, he knew, were usually swift and short, but sometimes they laste d longer. And where was Adam in all this fierce downpour?
    He had noted Miriam's quick glance from one to the other a s they rushed in the door. "What about Stark?" he asked. "Is there shelter out there?"
    "There's a cliff dwelling not far off . . . just an overhang fenced with rock, bu t it's dry." Miriam was busy at the fire. "He will be all right. Adam probably sa w the storm coming before any of us."
    "We were high up," Swante Taggart said. "We saw nobody riding ... not anywhere around."
    He thought of the trail over which he had come. Whatever else happened, there'd b e no tracks now for Shoyer, but how close was he? Had he trailed him as far as th e Salt River? If he had, he would be close enough to observe movement in the countr y around, and he was a man with the patience of an Indian.
    Taggart sat down and Miriam placed a cup of coffee before him. He stared at it, thinkin g of Consuelo. There was no telling what she had in mind, but everything about he r was a challenge to his maleness. Every move was provocative, every glance a testin g of him. It excited him, but it worried him too, for his good sense told him how explosiv e the situation was. There was something between the two women that set a man's teet h on edge ... no declared war, but a guarded antagonism that he sensed with every instinc t he had. As for Adam Stark, he knew those slow-smiling, quiet men. And he was in n o position to invite trouble. The best he could get would be the worst of it.
    He had been a fool to stay, yet there was no way he could have gone on. The solutio n now was to get out, and fast. He made up his mind suddenly. When the storm was over , he was going to go.
    The roar of rain on the roof drowned the opening of the door, but the sudden brus h of damp air turned Taggart sharply around.
    Pete Shoyer stood in the doorway and he had a hand on his gun.
    "Hello, Taggart," he said.

    Chapter Seven.
    For an instant the tableau was frozen in silence. Pete Shoyer loomed square and blac k in the gray light of the doorway , his features indistinguishable. He seemed in that moment as solid and indestructibl e as a mountain boulder, as ominous as destiny itself. His sudden appearance from ou t of the storm, his featureless presence, the square blackness of his outline in th e storm-darkened room was somehow shocking and terrible.
    Yet in that moment it was to Taggart that Miriam's eyes went, and he stood very tal l