THE TALL STRANGER
 Chapter
One
(may be abridged)
With slow, ponderously rhythmical steps the oxen moved, each step a pause and an
effort, each movement a deadening drag. Fine white dust hung in a sifting cloud about
the wagon train, caking the nostrils of animals and men, blanketing the sides of oxen
and horses, dusting a thin film over men and women. And the miles stretched on before
them, endless and timeless.
Rock Bannon, riding away from the train alone, drew in his steel-dust stallion and
turned in the saddle, glancing back at the covered wagons, sixteen of them in the long
line with some led horses and a few outriders, yet none who rode so far out as himself,
and none who appreciated their problems as thoroughly as he did himself.
The vision was in them yet, the gold promise of the distant hills, offering a land
of milk and honey, the fair and flowering land sought by all wandering peoples of whatever
time or place. No hardship could seem too great, no trail too long, no mountain
impassable when the vision was upon them.
His somber green eyes slanted back now to the last wagon but one, where the
red-gold hair of Sharon on the drivers seat was a flame no dust could dim. In the
back of that heavily loaded wagon was Tom Crockett, her father, restless with fever
and hurt, nursing a bullet wound in his thigh, a memento of the battle with Buffalo
Hide's warriors.
From the head of the train came a long, melodious halloo. Cap Mulholland swung
his arm in a great circle, and the lead oxen turned ponderously to swing in the beginning
of the circle. Rock touched the gray with his heels and rode slowly toward the wagon
train. Cap's beard was white with dust as he looked up. Weariness and worry showed
in his face. "Rock," he said, "we could sure use a little fresh meat.
We're all a mite short on rations, and you seem to be the best hunter among us."
"All right," Rock said. "I'll see what I can do after I get
Crockett's wagon in place."
Mulholland's head turned sharply. "Bannon, I'd let that girl alone if I were
you. No offense intended, but she ain't your kind. I ain't denyin' you've been a
sight of help to us. In fact, I don't know what we'd have done without you, and we're
glad you came along. But Sharon Crockett's another story. Her pa's bedded down now,
and in no shape to speak."
Bannon turned the steel-dust sharply. His face was grim and his jaw hard. "Did
he ask you to speak to me? Or did she?"
"Well, no -- not exactly," Mulholland said uncomfortably. "But
I'm headin' this train."
"Then I'll thank you to mind your own business. Headin' this wagon train
is job enough for any man. Any time the Crocketts ask me to stay away, I'll stay, but
that's their affair."
Mulholland's face flushed and his eyes darkened with anger. "She ain't your
kind," he persisted, "you bein' a killer, and all."
Rock Bannon stared at him. "You didn't seem to mind my killing Indians!"
he said sarcastically.
"I ain't denyin' you helped us, but killin' Indians and killin' white men's a
different thing!"
"You're new to the West, Cap." Bannon's voice was rough. "In a
short time you'll find there's white men out here that need killin' a sight worse than
indians. In fact, I'm not so sure those Indians jumped us without help!"
"What do you mean?" Mulholland demanded.
"I mean," Bannon said, "that Morton Harper told you there'd be no
hostile Indians on this route! I warned you of Buffalo Hide then, but he told you he
ranged further north. You took his advice on this trail, not mine!"
Pagones and Pike Purcell were coming up to join them. Pike heard the last remark
and his lean, lantern-jawed face flushed with anger.
"You ridin' Harper again?" he harshly demanded of Bannon. "He said
this was a better trail, and it is. We ain't had no high passes, and we had six days of
the best travel we've had since we left Council Bluffs, with plenty of water and plenty
of grass. Now we get a few bad days and a brush with Indians, but that ain't too
much!" He glared at Rock. "I'm sick of your whinin' about this trail and
Harper!"
"I wasn't talking to you," Rock replied shortly, "and I don't like
your tone."
"I don't need no killer to tell me my business!"
"Here, here!" Cap protested. We can't afford to have trouble in camp.
You'll have to admit, Pike, that we'd have been in bad shape a couple of times in that
fight, if it hadn't been for Bannon. He's been a help. I don't agree with him on Mort
Harper, either, but every man to his own idea."
Rock swung the gray and cantered off toward the hills. Inwardly, he was seething.
He was a fool to stay on the wagon train. Not a man here liked him, not a man here
talked to him except on business. He was not even a member of their train, except by
accident.
They had found him at the crossing of the Platte. Riding, half dead, with two
bullet wounds in his body, his horse ready to drop with fatigue, he had run upon the
wagon train. Sharon Crockett had bedded him down in her wagon and cared for him, and
he had ridden on in the same place where her father rode now.
He had offered no explanation of his wounds, and had talked but little. A grim
and lonely man, gentle words came hard and he could only look up into Sharon's face and
wonder at her beauty, tongue-tied and helpless. He recovered rapidly, and after that
he had ridden along with the wagons, hunting for fresh meat and helping when he could.
He was not a man who made friends easily, yet gradually the ice was melting, and
the clannishness of the wagon train was breaking down. Twice he even talked with Sharon,
riding beside her wagon, speaking of the mountains and his own wild and lonely life.
All of that ended abruptly that night beside the campfire at the fort.
They had been seated around the fire eating supper, when a tall, handsome man
rode up on a beautiful black mare.
Perfectly groomed, his wide white hat topping coal black hair that hung to his
shoulders, a drooping black mustache and a black broadcloth suit, the trousers tucked
into hand-tooled boots, Morton Harper had been a picture to take any eye.
"Howdy, folks!" His voice was genial, his manner warm and pleasant.
In an instant his personality and voice had done what Rock Bannon's could not do in two
weeks. He had broken down their reserve and become one of the group. "Headin'
for California?"
"Reckon we are. Mulholland had agreed. "We ain't rightly decided
whether to stay on the Humboldt Trail or to swing north and go to Oregon."
"Why go either way?" Harper asked. "There's a southern route
I could recommend that would be much easier going for your womanfolks." He alert
eyes had already found and appreciated Sharon Crockett. "More water, plenty of
grass, and no high mountain passes."
Cap Mulholland looked up with interest. "We ain't heard of no such pass,
or no such trail."
"Man named Hastings scouted some of it, and I scouted the rest myself.
But," he added, "I can see you're well led, and you'll no doubt learn about
this trail yourselves."
As the hours flowed by, Harper sat among them, pleasing the men with subtle
flattery, the women with smiles. Before long they began to discuss his trail and its
possibilities. There was some talk of putting it to a vote, but it was morning before
it came to that. Until then Rock was silent. "You'd do better," he
interposed suddenly, "to stick to the regular trail."
Harper's head came up sharply and his eyes leveled at Bannon. "Have you
ever been over the trail I suggest, my friend?"
"Part way," Rock replied. "Only part of it."
"And was that part easy going for oxen and horses? Was there a good
trail?"
"Yes, I reckon it has all that, but I still wouldn't advise it."
"Of course, it's nothing to me what route you take, but if you want to
avoid Indians--" He shrugged.
"What about Buffalo Hide?"
Morton Harper's face tightened and his eyes strained to pry Rock Bannon's face
from the shadows in which he sat. "He's Blackfoot. He ranges further north."
Harper's eyes shifted to Mulholland. "Who is this man? I'm surprised he
should ask about Buffalo Hide, as he isn't known to most white men, other then renegades.
I can't understand why he should try to persuade you to neglect an easier route for a
more dangerous one. Is he one of your regular train?
Pike Purcell was abrupt. "No, he ain't none of our crowd, just a man who
tied up with us back yonder a ways."
"I see," Morton Harper's face became grave with implied doubt. "No
offense, friend, but would you mind telling me your name. You'll admit it is safer to be
careful, for there are so many renegades who work with the indians."
"My name's Rock Bannon."
Morton Harper's lips tightened and his eyes grew wary. For a moment he seemed taken
aback. Then, as he perceived where his own interests lay, his eyes lighted with triumph.
"Ah? Bannon, eh? I've heard of you. Killed a man in Laramie a month or so
back, didn't you?"
"He drew on me."
Rock was acutely conscious of the sudden chill in the atmosphere, and he could see
Sharon's shocked gaze directed at him. The people of the wagon train were fresh from the
East. They were peace-loving men, quiet, and asking for no trouble.
"Sorry to have brought it up, Bannon. But when a man advises a wagon train
against their best interests, it is well to inquire the source of the advice."
Bannon got up. He was a tall man, lean-hipped and broad-shouldered, his flat-brimmed
hat shadowing his face, his eyes glowing with piercing light as he spoke.
"I still say that route's a fool way to go. This ain't no country to go
wanderin' around in, and that route lies through Hardy Bishop's country. You spoke of
Hastings. He was the man who advised the Donner Party."
In the morning when they moved out they took the trail Harper had advised, turning
off an hour after they left the fort. Rock Bannon was with them. He rode close to
Sharon's wagon, and after a time she looked up.
"You don't approve, do you?"
He shook his head. Then he smiled, somewhat grimly. He was a dark, good-looking
man with a tinge of recklessness in his green eyes.
"My views aren't important," he said, "I don't belong."
"Pike shouldn't have said that," she said. "He's a strange man. A
good man, but stubborn and suspicious.
"Not suspicious of the right folks, maybe."
Her eyes flashed. "You mean Mr. Harper? Why should we be suspicious of him?
He was only trying to help."
"I wonder."
"I think," Sharon said sharply, "you'd do better to be a little less
suspicious yourself!"
"You haven't met Hardy Bishop yet. Nor Buffalo Hide."
"Who is Hardy Bishop?"
"He's a man who is trying to run cattle at Indian Writing. They say he's insane
to try it, but he's claimed seventy miles of range, and he has cattle there. We have to
cross his range."
"What's wrong with that?"
"If you cross it, maybe nothing, but Bishop's a funny man. He's going to wonder
why you're so far south. He's going to be suspicious."
"We don't care, and we won't bother him any. Does he think he owns the whole
country?"
"Uh-huh," Rock said, "I'm afraid he does--with some reason, as far as
that valley goes. He made it what it is today."
"How could any man make a valley?" Sharon protested. "This is all
free country. Anyway, we're just going through."
The conversation had dwindled and died and after a while he rode off to the far flank
of the wagon train. Sharon's manner was distinctly stiff, and he could see she was
remembering that story of the killing in Laramie. After a few rebuffs he avoided her.
Nobody talked to him. He rode alone and camped alone.
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