“They’d have killed us.”
“Pritts will take your helping Miguel as a declaration of war.”
There was more sound out in the darkness and we pulled back out of the light of
the fire. It was Cap Rountree and two of Alvarado’s hands. One of them was Pete
Romero, but the other was a man I didn’t know.
He was a slim, knifelike man in a braided leather jacket, the most duded-up man
I ever saw, but his pearl-handled six-shooter was hung for business and he had a
look in his eyes that I didn’t like.
His name was Chico Cruz.
Cruz walked over to the bodies and looked at them. He took out a silver dollar
and placed it over the two bullet holes in Sandy’s chest. He pocketed the dollar
and looked at us.
“Who?”
Sunday jerked his head to indicate me. “His … and that one too.” He indicated
the man with the rifle. Then he explained what had happened, not mentioning the
burning twig, but the fact that I’d been covered by the rifle.
Cruz looked at me carefully and I had a feeling this was a man who enjoyed
killing and who was proud of his ability with a gun. He squatted by the fire and
poured a cup of coffee. It was old coffee, black and strong. Cruz seemed to like
it.
Out in the darkness, helping Romero get Miguel into the saddle, I asked, “Who’s
he?”
“From Mexico. Torres sent for heem. He is a bad man. He has kill many times.”
Cruz looked to me like one of those sleek prairie rattlers who move like
lightning and kill just as easily, and there was nothing about him that I liked.
Yet I could understand the don sending for him. The don was up against a fight
for everything he had. It worried him, and he knew he was getting old, and he
was no longer sure that he could win.
When I came back to the fire, Chico Cruz looked up at me. “It was good
shooting,” he said, “but I can shoot better.”
Now I’m not a man to brag, but how much better can you get?
“Maybe,” I said.
“Someday we might shoot together,” he said, looking at me through the smoke of
his cigarette.
“Someday,” I said quietly, “we might.”
“I shall look forward to it, señor.”
“And I,” I smiled at him, “I shall look back upon it.”
Chapter XI
We expected trouble from Pritts but it failed to show up. Orrin came out to the
place and with a couple of men Don Luis loaned us and help from Cap and Tom we
put a house together. It was the second day, just after work finished when we
were setting around the fire that Orrin told Tom Sunday he was going after the
marshal’s job.
Sunday filled his cup with coffee. His mouth stiffened up a little, but he
laughed. “Well, why not? You’d make a good marshal, Orrin … if you get the
job.”
“I figured you wanted it ….” Orrin started to say, then his words trailed off as
Tom Sunday waved a hand.
“Forget it. The town needs somebody and whoever gets it will do a job. If I
don’t get it and you do, I’ll lend a hand … I promise that. And if I get it,
you can help me.”
Orrin looked relieved, and I knew he was, because he had been worried about it.
Only Cap looked over his coffee cup at Tom and made no comment, and Cap was a
knowing man.
Nobody needed to be a fortuneteller to see what was happening around town. Every
night there were drunken brawls in the street, and a man had been murdered near
Elizabethtown, and there had been robberies near Cimarron. It was just a
question of how long folks would put up with it.
Meanwhile we went on working on the house, got two rooms of it up and Orrin and
me set to making furniture for them. We finished the third room on the house and
then Orrin and me rode with Cap over to the Grant where we bought fifty head of
young stuff and drove it back and through the gap where we branded the cattle
and turned them loose.
Working hard like we had, I’d not seen much of Drusilla, so I decided to ride
over. When I came up Antonio Baca and Chico Cruz were standing at the gate, and
I could see that Baca was on duty there. It was the first time I’d seen him
since the night he tried to knife me on the trail.
When I started to ride through the gate, he stopped me. “What is it you want?”
“To see Don Luis,” I replied.
“He is not here.”
“To see the señorita, then.”
“She does not wish to see you.”
Suddenly I was mad. Yet I knew he would like nothing better than to kill me.
Also, I detected something in his manner … he was insolent. He was sure of
himself.
Was it because of Chico Cruz? Or could it be that the don was growing old and
Torres could not be everywhere?
“Tell the señorita,” I said, “that I am here. She will see me.”
“It is not necessary.” His eyes taunted me. “The señorita is not interested in
such as you.”
Chico Cruz moved his shoulders from the wall and walked slowly over. “I think,”
he said, “you had better do like he say.”
There was no burned-match trick to work on them, and anyway, I wasn’t looking
for a fight with any of Don Luis’ people. The don had troubles of his own
without me adding to them. So I was about to ride off when I heard her voice.
“Tye!” She sounded so glad I felt a funny little jump inside me. “Tye, why are
you waiting out there? Come in!”
Only I didn’t come in, I just sat my horse and said, “Señorita, is it all right
if I call here? At any time?”
“But of course, Tye!” She came to the gate and saw Baca standing there with his
rifle. Her eyes flashed. “Antonio! Put that rifle down! Señor Sackett is our
friend! He is to come and go as he wishes, do you understand?”
He turned slowly, insolently away. “Si,” he said, “I understand.”
But when he looked at me his eyes were filled with hatred and I glanced at Cruz,
who lifted a hand in a careless gesture.
When we were inside, she turned on me. “Tye, why have you stayed away? Why
haven’t you been to see us? Grandfather misses you. And he wanted to thank you
for what you did for Juan Torres, and for Miguel.”
‘They were my friends.”
“And you are our friend.”
She looked up at me, then took my hand and led me into another room and rang a
little bell. She had grown older, it seemed, in the short time since I had last
seen her. She looked taller, more composed, yet she was worried too, I could see
that.
“How is Don Luis?”
“Not well, Tye. My grandfather grows old. He is more than seventy, you know. I
do not even know how old, but surely more than that, and he finds it difficult
to ride now.
“He fears trouble with your people. He has many friends among them, but most of
them resent the size of the ranch. He wants only to keep it intact for me.”
“It is yours.”
“Do you remember Abreu?”
“Of course.”
“He is dead. Pete Romero found him dead last week, ten miles from here. He had
been shot in the back by someone with a Sharps buffalo gun.”
“That’s too bad. He was a good man.”
We drank tea together, and she told me all that had been happening. Some days
now it was difficult for the don to get out of bed, and Juan Torres was often
off across the ranch. Some of the men had become hard to handle and lazy.
Apparently, what had happened today was not the only such thing.
Don Luis was losing his grip when he needed desperately to be strong, and his
son, Drusilla’s father, had long been dead.
“If there is any way that I can help, you just call on me.”
She looked down at her hands and said nothing at all, and I sort of felt guilty,
although there was no reason why. There was nobody I loved so much as Drusilla,
but I’d never talked of love to anybody, and didn’t know how to go about it.
“There’s going to be trouble at Mora,” I said, “it would be well to keep your
men away from there.”
“I know.” She paused. “Does your brother see Señorita Pritts?”
“Not lately.” I paused, uncertain of what to say. She seemed older.
So I told her about the place we had found, and thanked her for the help of the