the Tall Stranger (1982) Read Online Free PDF Page A

liked the sound of what you said. We're pullin' on for Californy, and we'd sure like to have you with us!"
    Bannon hesitated. Sharon was walking away, her head held proudly. Did she seem to hesitate for his reply? He shrugged.
    "No," he said. "I've got other plans."
    Sharon Crockett, making frying-pan bread over the fire beside her wagon, stood up to watch Bob Sprague lead off the six wagons, the owners of which had decided not to stay. All farewells had been said the night before, yet now that time for the leavetaking had come, she watched uneasily.
    For years she had known Bob Sprague, ever since she was a tiny girl. He had been her father's friend, a steady, reliable man, and now he was going. With him went five other families, and among them some of the steadiest, soberest men in the lot.
    Were they wrong to take Morton Harper's advice? Her father, limping with the aid of a cane cut from the willows, walked back and stood beside her, his face somber. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Harper or Bannon, his hair silvery around the temples, his face gray with a slight stubble of beard. He was a fearless, independent man, given to going his own way, and thinking his own thoughts.
    Pagones walked over to them. "Did Bannon go along? I ain't seen him."
    "I don't think he went," Crockett replied. "Sprague wanted him to go."
    "No, he didn't go," said Satterfield, who had walked up to join him. Satterfield had been a frontier lawyer back in Illinois. "I saw him riding off down the canyon, maybe an hour ago."
    "You think there will be trouble?" Pagones asked.
    Satterfield shrugged. "Probably not. I know how some of these old frontiersmen are. They hate to see civilization catch up with them, but given time, they come around. Where's Harper?"
    "He went off somewhere with that dark-lookin' feller who trails with him," Pagones said. "Say, I'm glad Dud Kitchen didn't go. I'd sure miss that music he makes. He was goin', then at the last minute changed his mind. He's goin' down with Harper and Cap to survey that townsite."
    "Seem good to have a town again," Crockett said. "Where's it to be?"
    "Down where Poplar Canyon runs into Bishop's Valley. Wide, beautiful spot, they say, with plenty of water and grass. John Kies is puttin' in a store, I'm goin' to open an office, and Collins is already figurin' on a blacksmith shop."
    "Father, did you ever hear of a man named Zapata?" Sharon asked thoughtfully. "Pete Zapata?"
    Crockett looked at her curiously. "Why, no. Not that I recall. Why?"
    "I was just wondering."
    The next morning they hitched up the oxen and moved their ten wagons down Poplar Canyon to the townsite. The high, rocky walls of the canyon widened slowly, and the oxen walked on, knee deep in rich, green grass. Along the stream were willow and poplar, and higher along the canyon sides Sharon saw alder, birch, and mountain mahogany with here and there a fine stand of lodgepole pine. Tom Crockett was driving, so she ranged alongside, riding her sorrel mare.
    As they rounded the last bend in the canyon, it spread wide before them and she saw Morton Harper sitting his black mare some distance off. Putting the sorrel to a gallop, she rode down swiftly, hair blowing in the wind. Dud Kitchen was there with Zapata and Cap. They were driving stakes and lining up a street.
    Before them the valley dropped into the great open space of Bishop's Valley, and she rode on. Suddenly, rounding a knoll, she stopped and caught her breath.
    The long, magnificent sweep of the valley lay before her, green and splendid in the early-morning sun. Here and there over the grassland cattle grazed, belly deep in the tall grass. It was overpowering, it was breathtaking. It was something beyond the grasp of the imagination. High on either side lifted the soaring walls of the canyon, mounting into high ridges, snow-capped peaks, and majestic walls of gray rock.
    This was the cattle empire of Hardy Bishop. This was the place Rock Bannon spoke of with such amazing