yourself.”
Pritts was mad. He was not accustomed to straight talk—least of all from men
like us. He said nothing for a moment and Laura sat down near Orrin and I got a
whiff of her perfume.
“The Mexicans have no rights,” Pritts replied. “The land belongs to us freeborn
Americans, and if you come in with us now you will have shares in the company we
are forming.”
“We need a home for Ma,” Orrin said, “we do need land.”
“If we get it this way, there’ll be blood on it,” I said, “but first we should
get Mr. Pritts’ proposition in writing, just what he has in mind, and how he
aims to settle up.” That was Pa talking. Pa always said, “Get it in writing,
boy.”
“A gentleman’s word,” Pritts replied stiffly, “should be enough.”
I got up. I’d no idea what the others figured to do and didn’t much care. This
sanctimonious old goat was figuring to steal land from folks who’d lived on it
for years.
“A man who is talking of stealing land with guns,” I said, “is in no position to
talk about himself as being a gentleman. Those people are American citizens now
as much as you or me.”
Turning around, I started for the door, and Cap Rountree was only a step behind
me. Tom Sunday hesitated, being a polite man, but the four of us were four who
worked and travelled together, so he followed us. Orrin lagged a little, but he
came.
Pritts yelled after us, his voice trembling he was so mad. “Remember this! Those
who aren’t with me are against me! Ride out of town and don’t come back!”
None of us were greenhorns and we knew those men on the porch weren’t knitting
so when we stopped, the four of us faced out in four directions. “Mr. Pritts,” I
said, “you’ve got mighty big ideas for such a small head. Don’t you make trouble
for us or we’ll run you back to the country they run you out of.”
He was coming after us and he stopped in midstride, stopped as though I’d hit
him with my fist. Right then I knew what I’d said was true … somebody had run
him out of somewhere.
He was an arrogant man who fancied himself important, and mostly he carried it
off, but now he was mad. “We’ll see about that!” he shouted. “Wilson, take
them!”
Rountree was facing the first man who started to get out of a chair, which was
Wilson, and there was no mercy in old Cap. He just laid a gun barrel alongside
of Wilson’s head and Wilson folded right back into his chair.
The man facing Orrin had a six-shooter in his stomach and I was looking across a
gun barrel at Pritts himself. “Mr. Pritts,” I said, “you’re a man who wants to
move in on folks with guns. Now you just tell them to go ahead with what they’ve
started and you’ll be dead on the floor by the tune you’ve said it.”
Laura stared at me with such hatred as I’ve ever seen on a woman’s face. There
was a girl with a mighty big picture of her pa and anybody who didn’t see her pa
the way she did couldn’t be anything but evil. And whoever she married was
always going to play second fiddle to Jonathan Pritts.
Pritts looked like he’d swallowed something that wasn’t good for him. He looked
at that Navy Colt and he knew I was not fooling. And so did I.
“All right.” He almost choked on it. “You can go.”
We walked to our horses with nobody talking and when we were in our saddles
Orrin turned on me. “Damn you, Tye, you played hell. You the same as called him
a thief.”
“That land belongs to Alvarado. We killed a lot of Higginses for less.”
That night I slept mighty little, trying to figure out if I’d done right. Anyway
I looked at it, I thought I’d done the right thing, and I didn’t believe my
liking for Drusilla had a thing to do with it. And believe me, I thought about
that.
Next morning I saw Fetterson riding out of town with a pack of about forty men,
and Wilson was with him. Only Wilson’s hat wasn’t setting right because of the
lump on his skull. They rode out of town, headed northeast.
About the time they cleared the last house a Mexican boy mounted on a speedy
looking sorrel took off for the hills, riding like the devil was on his tail.
Looked to me like Don Luis had his own warning system and would be ready for
Fetterson before he got there. Riding that fast he wouldn’t be riding far, so
chances were a relay of horses was waiting to carry the word. Don Luis had a lot
of men, lots of horses, and a good many friends.
Orrin came out, stuffing his shirt into his pants. He looked mean as a bear with
a sore tooth. “You had no call to jump Mr. Pritts like that.”
“If he was an honest man, I’d have nothing to say.”
Orrin sat down. One thing a body could say for Orrin, he was a fair man.
“Tyrel,” he said at last, “you ought to think before you talk. I like that
girl.”
Well … I felt mighty mean and low down. I set store by Orrin. Most ways he was
smarter than me, but about this Pritts affair, I figured he was wrong.
“Orrin, I’m sorry. We never had much, you and me. But what we had, we had honest
We want a home for Ma. But it wouldn’t be the home she wants if it was bought
with blood.”
“Well … damn it, Tyrel, you’re right, of course. I just wish you hadn’t been
so rough on Mr. Pritts.”
“I’m sorry. It was me, not you. You ain’t accountable for the brother you’ve
got.”
“Tyrel, don’t you talk thataway. Without you that day back home in Tennessee I’d
be buried and nobody knows it better than me.”
Chapter VII
This was raw, open country, rugged country, and it bred a different kind of man.
The cattle that went wild in Texas became the longhorn, and ran mostly to horns
and legs because the country needed a big animal that could fight and one who
could walk three days to get water. Just so it bred the kind of man with guts
and toughness no eastern man could use.
Most men never discover what they’ve got inside. A man has to face up to trouble
before he knows. The kind of conniving a man could get away with back east
wouldn’t go out here. Not in those early years. You can hide that sort of
behavior in a crowd, but not in a country where there’s so few people. Not that
we didn’t have our own kinds of trickery and cheating.
Jonathan Pritts was one of those who mistook liberty for license and he figured
he could get away with anything. Worst of all, he had an exaggerated idea of how
big a man he was … trouble was, he wasn’t a big man, just a mean one.
We banked our money with the Express Company in Santa Fe, and then we saddled up
and started back to the Purgatoire after more cattle. We had us an outfit this
time. Dapple was still my horse, and a better no man was likely to have, but
each of us now had four extra mounts and I’d felt I’d done myself proud.
The first was a grulla, a mouse-colored mustang who, judging by disposition, was
sired out of a Missouri mule by a mountain lion with a sore tooth. That grulla
was the most irritating, cantankerous bit of horseflesh I ever saw, and he could
buck like a sidewinder on a red-ant hill. On the other hand he could go all day
and night over any kind of country on less grass and water than one of Beale’s
camels. My name for him was Sate, short for Satan.
There was a buckskin, a desert horse used to rough going, but steady. In many
ways the most reliable horse I had. His name was Buck, like you might expect.
Kelly was a big red horse with lots of bottom. Each horse I paid for out of my
own money, although Sate they almost gave me, glad to be rid of him, I expect.
First time I straddled Sate we had us a mite of a go-around. When I came off him
I was shook up inside and had a nosebleed, but I got off when I was good and
ready and from that time on Sate knew who was wearing the pants.
My fourth horse I bought from an Indian. We’d spent most of the day dickering
with Spanish men, and this Indian sat off to one side, watching. He was a